US researchers have created the heaviest antimatter nucleus ever observed by humans.
The long tubes of the particle accelerator at Brookhaven National Laboratory were the scene of a world first. Scientists at the US research center, located in New York State, succeeded in creating antihydrogen-4 particles. It is the heaviest antimatter nucleus ever observed by humans.
British physicist Paul Dirac recalls that the theory of antimatter was around a century ago. Science AlertThey are a collection of so-called “mirror” particles, which contain the same number of protons and electrons, but with opposite charges to the common elements of our universe.
It is possible that a similar amount of matter and antimatter was created during the Big Bang, but antimatter can only be observed through scientific experiments. It is particularly noticeable when studying gravitational waves or in particle accelerators, as is the case here.
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10 Great Discoveries That Advance Science
The collision of heavy elements at very high speeds reproduces the conditions of the Big Bang.
Moreover, these are conditions similar to the Big Bang that the Brookhaven scientists had to recreate to make their discovery. The energy needed to create them comes from the collision of nuclei of heavy elements such as uranium. Bunches of atoms are swirled at speeds close to the speed of light in a particle accelerator. Their path is then deflected so that these clusters of particles collide.
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This impact creates tiny but intense balls of fire, briefly reproducing the conditions of the universe’s creation. At this moment, hundreds of particles – called pions – are briefly created and detected by the experiment’s infrastructure. Scientists then need to measure the drag and curvature caused by the collision to determine what kind of particle it is.
The STAR experiment at Brookhaven National Laboratory produced 16 antihydrogen-4 nuclei. This molecule contains a “hypernucleus,” that is, it contains a hyperon, a particle similar to a nucleon, but slightly heavier. Only the hyperon in question was made of antimatter. In detail, the molecule contains an antiproton, two antineutrons, and an antihyperon.
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Understanding the origin of antimatter to uncover the mystery of dark matter
This observation is particularly important because it may allow us to learn more about antimatter, and thus dark matter. It remains theoretical to this day, and is used today to explain the differences between the main principles of physics (especially the general theory of relativity) and the scientific results of observations of these phenomena.
The goal of the STAR experiment is to be able to calibrate theoretical models to see how much antimatter a collision with “normal” matter can generate. This setup should allow for a better understanding of the observations made by dark matter detectors. According to some theories, two dark matter particles annihilate when they come into contact, creating matter and antimatter.
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Thus, the data collected by scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory should make it possible to build theoretical models that will help trace the origin of antimatter. This seems to be a step towards understanding these strange substances. The question here in particular is why antimatter is so rarely observed in the universe.
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