Can antihydrogen undergo fusion to make antihelium?

[zephramcochran]

Hi,

Three questions to forum about something I have been wondering about on antimatter:

Can antihydrogen fuse to make antihelium through an antiproton-antiproton chain similar to how protons fuse to make helium in the Sun?

If so, like nuclear fusion with matter, does nuclear fusion with antiprotons produce net energy?

Finally, has any lab or individual done this experiment?

Thanks

 

[Khashishi]

Dunno if it has been measured, but the reaction would give off energy just like matter fusion.

 

[Drakkith]

Yes, antimatter fusion works just like normal fusion.
To my knowledge this has not been done in a laboratory before.

 

[dauto]

Yes, antimatter would fuse just like matter. You could have whole antimatter galaxies if could only get enough antimatter to build one. To be clear, the symmetry between matter and antimatter (called CP symmetry) is not exact. So there would be subtle differences between an antimatter world and the matter world we actually have. But those differences would be very small.