Scientists at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and the international collaboration STAR (Solenoid Tracker at RHIC) announced discovery of the largest antimatter nucleus ever detectedThis finding, which is considered a milestone in particle physics, may provide some clues about the asymmetry between matter and antimatter in the universe.
Antimatter “bomb” This was called anti-hyperhydrogen-4and consists of an antiproton, two antineutrons, and an antihyperion (a baryon containing a strange quark). Traces of this particle were detected by STAR members using a house-sized particle detector among the “traces” left over from six billion collisions at RHIC.
It is common knowledge that, apart from the opposite charges, antimatter and matter have the same mass, lifespan before decay, and interactions, but the graduate student at Lanzhou University thinks so, says co-author Junlin Wu in a statement. “Why matter dominates our universe is a question we still don’t know the full answer to.”.
Antimatter escape
The study, recently published in the journal Nature, found that high-energy nuclear collisions, such as those performed at RHIC, “Create conditions similar to those in the Universe microseconds after the Big Bang“with comparable amounts of matter and antimatter”. However, most of the antimatter manages to escape the initial impact zone of the fireball without destroying itself.
This process is fundamental to the STAR experiments because physicists to study, albeit for a very short time, the properties of antimatter and exotic particles such as anti-hyperhydrogen-4. Although they say the antiparticles “escape,” they are confined to the collider and then annihilate themselves when they encounter normal matter in the detector, releasing a photon of light.
The work consists of throwing billions of heavy ions (atomic nuclei without electrons) against each other, creating a plasma “soup” from which elements similar to those at the beginning of the cosmos emerge. They appear for a short time, combine, and then decay.
New atomic nucleus disappears like its antimatter “counterpart”
After “looking” for traces of the decayed ions, the authors discovered that both hyperhydrogen-4 and its antimatter counterpart, antihyperhydrogen-4, vanished very quickly, with no visible difference between their short lifetimes.
This is good news, says co-author Emilie Duckworth, a PhD candidate at the University of Kent. “If we see this particular symmetry being violated, it basically We’re going to have to throw most of what we know about physics out the window.” he concludes.
The next step for physicists will be to measure the mass difference between particles and antiparticles. We hope this can help us understand so-called baryonic asymmetryThis created an imbalance in favor of matter, preventing our Universe from turning into a “sea” of high-energy photons.
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I’m Blaine Morgan, an experienced journalist and writer with over 8 years of experience in the tech industry. My expertise lies in writing about technology news and trends, covering everything from cutting-edge gadgets to emerging software developments. I’ve written for several leading publications including Gadget Onus where I am an author.
