Ever since an antiatom was produced in 1995 at the ATAPS particle accelerator at CERN (nine were sensed traveling at nearly the speed of light), the race to make cold antihydrogen is on. Two reactors have proclaimed success at trapping antihydrogen atoms: the aforementioned ATAPS, and ATHENA, with the first trap success. I won't go into detail, but a trap has held atoms for (at least) two months (more since the Scientific American I read was a back issue from last month) without measurable losses. However, not enough H-bar (a.k.a. antihydrogen) has been produced to get a spectroscopy reading, and it is too hot. (It needs to be cooled down to about half a degree Kelvin to be read.) If CPT symmetry holds (ha, ha, ha...that stuff has a losing track record), the H-bar spectrum will be the same as normal hydrogen. As for why the whole assembly doesn't blow up when an atom hits the side, note that only an atom hits at a time, not creating enough energy to blow the reactor apart. (For you real scientists: The annihilation produces three pions and two gamma rays, according to SciAm.) Anyway, the race is on, and I'd like to know your comments on this.
End of line.
-Snoopy
well i really dont know what to say. but i want some H-bar's and antimatter so then we can have a kind of warp or light propoulsion system.
CERN with it's current technology will never be able to create enough anitmatter to come up to any worthwhile practical application.
The only thing they can do is study the small ammounts that they can make.
It takes so much time and energy simply to make a few thousand atoms that the race you speak of is already lost.
The only way Antimatter can be truly used as a resource is if it can be created in large amounts which I doubt will happen anytime soon.
The only way Antimatter can be truly used as a resource is if it can be created in large amounts which I doubt will happen anytime soon.
True. "Large" is an understatement...oh, well.
If H-Bar could be produced, what kinds of practical applications do you think could result from it?
-Snoopy
When you say H-bar you mean Hydrogen antiparticles right?
Here's what I meant in my last post.
The scarcity of antimatter means that it is not readily available to be used as fuel, although it could be used in antimatter catalyzed nuclear pulse propulsion. Generating a single antiproton is immensely difficult and requires particle accelerators and vast amounts of energy—millions of times more than is released after it is annihilated with ordinary matter, due to inefficiencies in the process. Known methods of producing antimatter from energy also produce an equal amount of normal matter, so the theoretical limit is that half of the input energy is converted to antimatter. Counterbalancing this, when antimatter annihilates with ordinary matter energy equal to twice the mass of the antimatter is liberated—so energy storage in the form of antimatter could (in theory) be 100% efficient. Antimatter production is currently very limited, but has been growing at a nearly geometric rate since the discovery of the first antiproton in 1955[3]. The current antimatter production rate is between 1 and 10 nanograms per year, and this is expected to increase dramatically with new facilities at CERN and Fermilab. With current technology, it is considered possible to attain antimatter for $25 million per gram by optimizing the collision and collection parameters (given current electricity generation costs). Antimatter production costs, in mass production, are almost linearly tied in with electricity costs, so economical pure-antimatter thrust applications are unlikely to come online without the advent of such technologies as deuterium-deuterium fusion power. Several NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts-funded studies [4] are exploring whether the antimatter that occurs naturally in the Van Allen belts of Earth, and ultimately, the gas giants like Jupiter, might be able to be collected with magnetic scoops, at hopefully a lower cost per gram.
Since the energy density is vastly higher than these other forms, the thrust to weight equation used in antimatter rocketry and spacecraft would be very different. In fact, the energy in a few grams of antimatter is enough to transport an unmanned spacecraft to Mars in about a month—the Mars Global Surveyor took eleven months to reach Mars. It is hoped that antimatter could be used as fuel for interplanetary travel or possibly interstellar travel, but it is also feared that if humanity ever gets the capabilities to do so, there could be the construction of antimatter weapons.
~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimatter
When you say H-bar you mean Hydrogen antiparticles right?
That is correct.
Thank you for the explanation. I did not know that antimatter occured naturally in the Van Allen belts, although now for some reason it all makes sense.
An antimatter weapon--now there's an interesting idea...
-Snoopy