Physicists Develop Anti-Matter Gun Black holes and pulsars radiate thick jets of particles, comprised of electrons and their anti-particle partner – the positron. Astronomers are able to observe the jets but are unable to directly study and analyze them due to their distant locations in the universe. The exact particle composition and energy content of the jets remains a mystery. With the help facilities such as CERN, physicists are able to smash particles together in an attempt to understand the fundamental particles seen in these cosmic jets and plasma. For every particle in our universe, there is an equal and opposite particle called an anti-particle with positrons being the anti-particle of electrons. Until recently, the only way to mass produce and analyze such particles was by means of vast underground particles accelerators like the Large Hadron Collider (LHC); however, thanks to a team of researchers at the University of Texas, the LHC’s capabilities are now available in a more convenient desktop version. An international team of physicists from the University of Michigan have gone one step further and developed an “anti-matter gun”, approximately one meter in length and capable of generating short bursts of positrons and electrons just like the ones emanating from black holes. To create these particle bursts, the team ionized a sample of inert helium gas by firing a petawatt (quadrillion watt) laser beam at it, generating a high-speed electron stream. The electron stream was then focused on super thin sheets of copper, tin, tantalum and lead, causing them to collide with individual metal atoms and yielding a stream of shorter, denser bursts of electrons and positrons, than typically produced by larger particle accelerators. Simply stated, the team used a quadrillion watt laser, fired it for approximately thirty quadrillionths (30 femtoseconds) of a second and produced quadrillions of positrons – statistics comparable to CERN! The new laser-based “anti-matter gun” is one of the only methods able to produce jets and plasma bursts simultaneously, enabling the team to directly observe and analyze how the particle jets and plasma interact. Researchers are optimistic these new results will lead to better understanding of anti-matter, black holes and the jets they produce. The image seen here is an artist impression of particle jets emanating from a black hole. -ALT Source: prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v110/i25/e255002 arxiv.org/abs/1304.5379 bit.ly/11ekGbh
Posted on: Sun, 07 Jul 2013 00:14:46 +0000
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