Antimatter excotic particle or another reality?

[chis]

Antimatter excotic particle or another reality?
Is it a mirror of matter or just another form of matter?

 

[mathman]

Antimatter excotic particle or another reality?
Is it a mirror of matter or just another form of matter?

It is another form of matter and is no more exotic than ordinary matter. The most common form consists of positrons. There isn't much around, since contact of an antimatter particle with its matter counterpart results in mutual destruction, ending up as gamma rays.

 

[Raap]

Is it known if matter attracts antimatter( and vice versa ) via gravity? From what I could find googling it, there was no actual experimental evidence of this.

 

[mathman]

Is it known if matter attracts antimatter( and vice versa ) via gravity? From what I could find googling it, there was no actual experimental evidence of this.

Current theory has antimatter experiencing gravity like ordinary matter (or dark matter). It is hard to set up an experiment, since the life of antiparticles is short (hitting ordinary matter).

 

[Bob S]

Antimatter excotic particle or another reality?
Is it a mirror of matter or just another form of matter?

Antimatter, in the form of antihydrogen, has been made at CERN since about 2002. It is in the form of antiprotons and positrons. No gravity/antigravity measurements have been made yet, but that is one of the oblectives of the AEGIS experiment. See
http://www.webalice.it/datrezzi/aegis.htm

 

[turbo]

Antimatter, in the form of antihydrogen, has been made at CERN since about 2002. It is in the form of antiprotons and positrons. No gravity/antigravity measurements have been made yet, but that is one of the oblectives of the AEGIS experiment. See
http://www.webalice.it/datrezzi/aegis.htm

One BIG problem with testing the weak equivalence principle is that gravity is incredibly weak and electrical charges can swamp any gravitational effects. At CERN, they intend to produce cold, neutral antihydrogen to minimize noise from charge effects so gravitational equivalence can be tested. That's a big test.