Antimatter decay rate in a book?

morganhondam

I read a book in which it proposed that anti-matter "decayed" faster than matter, right after the big bang, which is why there isn't an around. Unfortunately, I've forgotten exactly what the writer meant, and who it was...

Can someone tell me who the writer was, and in what book it was written (I'm thinking Stephen Hawking or Bill Bryson)?

Can someone also explain to me the logic behind it, and if there is any evidence for it?

Thanks!

mathman

The logic behind it is simple. The universe essentially is made up of matter (not counting dark matter and dark energy, which are different altogether). At the big bang, theory says there should be equal amounts of matter and antimatter. The question (still unanswered) is - what happened to the antimatter?

tiny-tim

hi morganhondam! welcome to pf!
there's a 2004 new scientist article (preview at http://www.newscientist.com/article/...er-puzzle.html) which says …

"The discovery of a rare process that destroys antimatter faster than matter hints at an answer to the mystery.

The effect was uncovered during an experiment called BaBar at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in Menlo Park, California. Researchers found a massive difference in the decay rate of two types of fundamental particles, the bottom quark and its antimatter equivalent, the anti-bottom quark."

but there doesn't appear to be anything on the BaBar website (http://www-public.slac.stanford.edu/babar/default.aspx) confirming a connection with the big bang

K^2

The imbalance between matter and anti-matter is still being debated. All of the suggested mechanisms remain purely theoretical.

mfb

While asymmetries between matter and antimatter were found (look for "CP violation"), the observed differences are too small to explain the current amount of matter. The LHCb detector is designed to look for CP violation.