Where does other energy go when matter and antimatter annihilate?

CDCraig123

Its interesting you ask that I really love questions like this (the kind with no real answer). I would guess anything that was not matter but was energy or that could carry energy like a photon. I am sure there would be some form of radiation and lots of heat. The only real world thing I can draw on is a PET scan. A PET scan an injection of Positrons or (anti-electrons) into your blood stream. When positrons meet with electrons in your brain they annihilate one an other, turning into energy and a Gamma ray witch the scanners pick up. This makes a image of your brain. I am really digging deep on this one, as I have no idea if Positrons would react like anti matter will when it is introduced with it's opposite charged counter part. In other words if i had to guess a matter anti matter explosion would be a big gamma ray heat bomb you wouldn't wanna be in the same room. :) :) :)

A.T.

Photons are affected by Gravity in the same way as all objects. The acceleration of an object due to gravity is independent of object's mass, in both: Newtonian Physics and General Relativity.

All free falling objects travel through space-time in a straight line, or geodesic.

CDCraig123

read this.

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/as...rs/961102.html

WannabeNewton

As DaleSpam already clarified, it is not just mass but the Stress - Energy tensor which is coupled to the gravitational field. This means that energy density, energy/momentum flux, and pressure all contribute to non - zero curvature. I should point out that objects only travel in straight lines locally in an arbitrarily curved space - time while in free fall. A geodesic is the straightest possible path in curved space - time as two geodesics can still converge/diverge globally even if they start out parallel.

DaleSpam

The same is true of massive particles. In your description Newton's apple falling from the tree is affected by gravity only indirectly. The falling apple travels through spacetime in a straight line. If spacetime warps to the left so does the apple passing through it.

DaleSpam

Exactly, so the products of the anhilation reaction are a pair of gamma rays i.e. a pair of photons. If the original positron and electron have a high KE then the resulting photons will have a higher energy also. Since they originate at the same location as the positron and electron they will also have the same gravitational PE as the original positron and electron. Energy is conserved across a particle creation/anhilation reaction.

Dotini

Apparently some quantity of antimatter is permanently trapped in a magnetic belt around Earth. Some folks may already be scheming to harvest its energy!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14405122
http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/studi...71Bickford.pdf

A thin band of antimatter particles called antiprotons enveloping the Earth has been spotted for the first time.

The find, described in Astrophysical Journal Letters, confirms theoretical work that predicted the Earth's magnetic field could trap antimatter.

The team says a small number of antiprotons lie between the Van Allen belts of trapped "normal" matter.

The antiprotons were spotted by the Pamela satellite (an acronym for Payload for Antimatter Matter Exploration and Light-nuclei Astrophysics) - launched in 2006 to study the nature of high-energy particles from the Sun and from beyond our Solar System - so-called cosmic rays.

The new analysis, described in an online preprint, shows that when Pamela passes through a region called the South Atlantic Anomaly, it sees thousands of times more antiprotons than are expected to come from normal particle decays, or from elsewhere in the cosmos.

Dr Bruno said that, aside from confirming theoretical work that had long predicted the existence of these antimatter bands, the particles could also prove to be a novel fuel source for future spacecraft - an idea explored in a report for Nasa's Institute for Advanced Concepts.

Respectfully submitted,
Steve

cmb

Fascinating!! Thanks for those links! I'd not have expected that.

A.T.

A misleading description, aimed at the non questioning layman. Here some quotes:

This is how all objects are affected by gravitation in General Relativity, not only photons. All free falling particles follow geodesics in curved space-time and experience the same coordinate acceleration, which is independent of their own mass.

A completely meaningless distinction. The geometry of space-time and gravitational field are the same thing in General Relativity.