Have a cup of antimatter?
Updated: Jan 24, 2020
Mimosa pudica[1] is a garden plant that behaves oddly to external stimuli. The compound leaves of the plant fold inward as a defense mechanism when it is touched or shaken. And due to this ability, it's commonly known as the touch-me-not plant, which is just about the best name for such an organism. But is it really a rare plant? It behaves different from that of other plants that you can find in your garden, but the word ‘different’ conveys a vague meaning here. There are many rare things in the universe, and yet they are all composed of atoms—protons, neutrons, and electrons to be more precise. From this understanding, a hot-air balloon is no different from that of a blue whale, for if you could break these entities into smaller constituents, you’ll find these same things, in different amounts, but the same particles for certain. These are what we commonly call matter, and every single thing that has non-zero rest mass in the universe falls into this category. So, in that sense, for something to be really rare, it has to be unlike matter in nature, something which is ‘anti’ matter. Yes, Antimatter.
But what is antimatter?
After the discovery of subatomic particles, in 1928, Paul Dirac, a British Physicist, came up with an equation that combined special relativity and quantum mechanics to describe the behavior of electrons at relativistic speeds. But the mathematical equation put forward a problem, a problem which did not align with the conventional way of thinking, for his equation predicted two possible solutions; one for an electron with positive energy and another for an electron with negative energy. But it meant that electrons could theoretically possess positive energy as well, unlike the electrons that we are familiar with. These particles were called positrons, and Dirac predicted that for every particle, there would be a corresponding antiparticle with an opposite charge. And these particles would later be collectively called antimatter.
Where is all the antimatter then?
According to our current understanding, the universe is estimated to be 93 billion light years[2] in diameter, and the matter in it(dark matter and dark energy excluded) has an estimated mass of at least 1.5 ×10^53 kg. Scientists believe that the Big bang should have created equal amounts of matter and antimatter. But all that we can possibly think of, from the microscopic to the macroscopic, are created from matter, so where in the universe is all the antimatter? What’s up with this mysterious asymmetry?
According to particle physics, this happens because matter and antimatter are always formed in pairs, and they destroy one another when they come in contact through a process called annihilation, to leave behind energy. But if that’s true, then how do we even exist? And for that matter, (no pun intended) how does anything exist? No one knows for certain. But it turns out that something happened during the big bang, which tipped the scale towards matter. Somehow a small amount of matter survived, about 1 particle per billion[3]. And this tiny leftover comprises everything that we see in the universe.
How can it be produced artificially?
Energy and mass are equivalent, and as Einstein proved this through his infamous energy-mass equivalence equation, we realized that matter could be created from energy. And this is what happens at places like CERN. Protons and electrons are stripped from the hydrogen atoms, and the protons are accelerated by using a proton synchrotron[4] and collided with a block of heavy metal. This collision converts the kinetic energy of the near-light-speed protons into numerous secondary particles and a lot of antiprotons. These antiprotons are then slowed down by using strong electric fields offered by an antiproton decelerator,[5] and are then transferred to other antimatter experiments.
When the antiprotons lose enough energy, an electric potential is introduced, which pushes them into a cloud of positrons. The positrons and the antiprotons combine to form low energy antiatoms of hydrogen[6], which has to be stored in strong magnetic field ‘bottles’ to prevent them from annihilating.
Can you have a cup full of it?
If you can make them, then why can’t you have a cup full of it for whatever your needs are. Well, it’s not so simple as that. First of all, the cup has to be magnetic to suspend the antimatter in place, so that it doesn’t annihilate matter. But that’s the least of our worries. CERN[7] says that when their facilities are fully operational, they are able to produce as much as ten million antiprotons a minute, which might sound high, but assuming an ideal 100% conversion of these antiprotons into antiatoms of hydrogen, it would take about 100 billion years to produce 1 gram of antihydrogen! That’s almost seven times the life of the universe! Building a larger collider might yield more, but then again, it would require immense input of energy.
According to CERN, a billionth of a gram of antimatter cost around a few hundred million Swiss francs[8] to produce. Marcela Carena[9], a theoretical physicist at Fermilab, joked[10] about the convenient use of antimatter in the movie Angels and demons, in a discussion at the World science festival discussion panel. She said that “it will cost the very little amount of money of 500 trillion dollars” to make about a quarter gram of antimatter. To put that in perspective, the global GDP of 2018 as per the World Bank[11] was only about 85 trillion US dollars. So, the answer is a disappointing no. Not with the technology that we have right now.
But that being said, in 2009, NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope detected antimatter produced over thunderstorms on earth, a phenomenon which was never seen before.
Moreover, NASA programs like the Institute for advanced concepts[12], a program for the development of long term advanced concepts, is exploring the possibilities of capturing naturally occurring antimatter from magnetic belts around planets, including earth, using magnetic scoops, preferably at lower costs.
Read more from sources:
[1]. Wikipedia contributors. (2019, August 29). Mimosa pudica. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20:17, September 10, 2019, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mimosa_pudica&oldid=912960005
[2]. Wikipedia contributors. (2019, August 25). Universe. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20:18, September 10, 2019, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Universe&oldid=912421421
[3]. CERN. (2019). The matter-antimatter asymmetry problem. Accessed on September 10, 2019, from https://home.cern/science/physics/matter-antimatter-asymmetry-problem
[4]. CERN. The Proton Synchrotron. (2019). Accessed on September 10, 2019, from https://home.cern/science/accelerators/proton-synchrotron
[5]. CERN. The Antiproton Decelerator. (2019). Accessed on September 10, 2019, from https://home.cern/science/accelerators/antiproton-decelerator
[6]. CERN. (2019). Storing antihydrogen. Accessed on September 10, 2019, from https://home.cern/science/physics/antimatter/storing-antihydrogen
[7], [8]. Wikipedia contributors. (2019, September 10). Antimatter. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20:23, September 10, 2019, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Antimatter&oldid=914993729
[9]. Wikipedia contributors. (2019, March 2). Marcela Carena. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20:25, September 10, 2019, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Marcela_Carena&oldid=885833133
[10]. World Science Festival. (Published on Jun 6, 2018). The Matter Of Antimatter: Answering The Cosmic Riddle Of Existence, in YouTube. Accessed on September 10, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMMgsjnI1is&t=1495s
[11]. The World Bank. (2018). GDP. Retrieved on September 10, 2019, from https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/ny.gdp.mktp.cd?end=2018&start=2018&view=bar under the license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license attributed to the World Bank.
[12]. NASA. (Last Updated: June 20, 2018). NIAC Overview. Accessed on September 10, 2019, from https://www.nasa.gov/content/niac-overview
Stock used:
Antimatter cup: https://unsplash.com/@charlesdeluvio The big bang: https://unsplash.com/@billy_huy and https://unsplash.com/@ameenfahmy_
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