Physicists have found a way to make antimatter from light

Sack Master / Shutterstock.com

A team of researchers has devised a new, relatively simple method for obtaining antimatter, by recreating the conditions prevailing near neutron stars using lasers.

mirror shape of matter

Antimatter is similar to ordinary matter, except that its particles have opposite charges. Obviously, such a peculiarity has big implications: If matter and antimatter meet, they will annihilate each other in a burst of energy. While our best models believe these should have been made in equal amounts during big BangMatter seems to dominate the universe today, and researchers are trying to determine the causes of such a scenario.

Unfortunately, the lack and instability of antimatter makes it difficult to study. It occurs naturally in extreme conditions, such as lightning, or near black holes and neutron stars, and artificially in massive facilities such as the Large Hadron Collider.

With reference to work published in the journal communication physicsResearchers have developed a new method that could make it possible to produce antimatter in small laboratories, which involves the projection of two opposing laser beams onto a plastic block with tiny channels a few micrometers wide. Although the device has not yet been built, simulations have shown that the concept is feasible.

The simulated images show how the plasma’s density (in black and white) changes when struck by a powerful laser beam. The colors represent the different energies of the gamma radiation produced during the collision – © Toma Tonsian

Upon hitting their target, the lasers pick up speed and eject clouds of colliding electrons. Due to the narrowing of the channels, this encounter produces a lot of gamma rays and promotes the collision of photons, causing a rain of matter and antimatter (mainly electrons and positrons). Finally, the magnetic fields surrounding the system focus the positrons into a beam of antimatter, which they amplify to extremely high energy levels.

d’important implication

« Such events are likely to occur in the magnetosphere of pulsars, that is, rapidly rotating neutron stars. “, Explain alexey arefiev, co-author of the study. ” With our new concept, they can be simulated in the laboratory, at least to some extent, which will allow us to understand them better.. »

The team emphasizes the efficiency of the new approach, making it possible to produce 100,000 times more positrons than a single-beam device with input lasers. Relatively » Not very powerful. Simulations have shown that the resulting antimatter beam can reach energies of 1 gigaelectronvolt (GeV) in a space of only 50 micrometres, typically requiring the use of large particle accelerators.

Although this is conceptual work, the study authors claim that the technology needed to build such a device is already being used by some existing installations. In particular, it could give researchers a better overview of the extreme conditions near black holes and neutron stars, and help them solve the cosmological puzzle of antimatter.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *