Antimatter: Production, storage and gravity experiments

[espen180]

Prodution and storage of antimatter seems to be a hard task. The latter is of course because antimatter is annihilated when it makes contact with regular matter.

Still, wouldn't it be possible to create $$\overline{^3He}^-$$ ions and store these in a metal container which has a lot of negative charge? By evacuating all of the air from the container before storage, we would be able to keep the $$\overline{^3He}^-$$ ions from getting into contact with regular matter gas molecules or the walls of the container.

$$\overline{^3He}$$ can be created in high energy lead-lead collisions*. Wouldn't it be possible to ionize these and store them as described above?

If we could make and store $$\overline{^3He}^-$$ as described above, we would be able to preform gravity experiments given enough $$\overline{^3He}^-$$ ions to make up a gas large enough for experimentation.

* http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/1367-2630/5/1/301/nj3101.pdf?request-id=4644ee8e-5019-4336-92fa-9fa9bb1511c9

 

[Vanadium 50]

I suggest you look at how many anti-helium-3 ions were produced, how long this experiment ran for, and calculate how many trillions of years you need to make a gram of anti-helium. I'll even let you assume 100% collection efficiency.

 

[espen180]

I realize that the method of production the article describes is unsufficient for the purpose of creating enough antihelium to preform experiments on, but it is the only method of production I am aware of.