"Antimatter - harnessing the power of positrons"

Lynn - professor in the departments of Physics and Mechanical & Materials Engineering and director of the Center for Materials Research - and Marc Weber, staff scientist in the Department of Physics, have developed an unprecedented concept that could offer the world its first practical method for containing and transporting a type of antimatter particle called the positron.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Research
• Positrons
• Antimatter
• Science

[memj33]

electron and positron are(as postulated above)of equal mass. In this light atom, called Positronium (Ps), electron and positron orbit around each other similar to a binary star system with the center of mass in the middle between electron and positron. This positronium is routinely used in many laboratories for fundamental physics research, materials science and chemical engineering. It is also an undesirable effect that has to be taken into account in medical Positron Emission Tomography (PET).

[memj33]

That atom has been created first at high energy some years ago and now also at very low near thermal energies at CERN.

The lightest atom possible is actually an atom and at the same time its antimatter counterpart. It behaves similar to a hydrogen atom. However, the heavy proton nucleus is replaced by a positron.

[memj33]

The proton has its antiproton, and there is an anti-neutron for the neutron.

Just like hydrogen is composed of an electron in orbit (in Niels Bohr terms) around a proton, a positron orbits an anti-proton to form anti-hydrogen.

In modern Quantum mechanics the orbit was turned into a cloud like probability distribution telling how likely it is to detect a positron (or electron) at a certain location from the anti-proton (proton).

[BLVCKB3RRI]

if there is a positively charged electrons what would a negatively charged proton be called if there is a such thing. which there probably is according to string theory where Anything is possible in a given amount of time. So what im trying to ask is what is an opposite of an atom with a positron cloud and a nucleus composed of nuetrons and negatively charged protons?

[memj33]

No need for string theory.

The concept of antimatter comes out of the equations from PAC Dirac who explained the negative energy state solutions as what we now call antiparticles.

Each and every elementary particles is said to have an antimatter counterpart. They are distinguished by the opposite charge, while mass and other quantum properties are identical.

The electrons anti-electron is now commonly known as the positron.

..continued

[SuperZekethefreak]

So in other words, antimatter is already completely bound within matter. In fact, matter wouldn't even be possible without antimatter particles bound in its nuclei.  You wouldn't really even need a fancy trap if you just had a small particle accelerator to annihilate matter. Shoot a gamma photon at an atom and boom - one electron + one positron are liberated from the photon. You are talking about a second more controlled annihilation I suppose, of the constituent electron + positron.

[ArabAstronomy]

...then some stupid gov gonna make an antimatter bomb...

[EPICGUYDUDE]

wait! if antimatter touches matter, they blow themselves apart right? so how to positron scans work? wont the positrons blow apart in the human body?

[TheDouchesupreme]

Fantastic. A question though and perhaps a stupid one at that but at the begining of time shouldn't there have been equal portions of matter and anti-matter present ? If so where is all the anti-matter now ?

It occurs to me that at the begining of time that everything was energy and matter hadn't cooled and condensed but the premise is there despite my obvious lack of knowledge on the subject.

[evolivid]

could 2 positrons( in a isolated system )with one electron get the counter the annihilation and balance the positrons into a state of containment

by positively charged spherical walls and if there phase angle position and speed spin ...ect are in resonance ?