Can we tell apart antimatter from matter?

[technobot]

Hello, assuming we can detect antimatter with some telescopic technique just like we can detect matter, is there any way to tell them apart? How would this be done?

 

[Chronos]

Anti-matter would behave exactly like regular matter until the two met. We deduce there is very little anti-matter in the universe because we do not observe such collisions, which would be hugely energetic.

 

[Parlyne]

Anti-matter would behave exactly like regular matter until the two met. We deduce there is very little anti-matter in the universe because we do not observe such collisions, which would be hugely energetic.

That's not quite true. Because the chirality of an anti-particle is the opposite of its matter equivalent, its interaction under the weak force is slightly different. While the strength of the interaction is unchanged, any angular dependances of weak interactions will be reversed. This, however, can really only be seen in precision tests. So, there is nothing we could directly observe that would tell us that we're looking at antimatter.

 

[filegraphy]

Also antimatter and matter have reverse polarity inside the atoms. In matter's nucleus the charge is positive due to the proton, but the antimatter's nucleus is opposite because the nucleus is negatively charged. The electron is negative and the positron is positive.