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Are there any answers to this question? If equal amounts of matter and antimatter were in existence at the big bang surely each annihilation would remove equal amounts of matter and antimatter?
Bear in mind that the asymmetry between matter and antimatter appears to be very small. Today in the universe there are about 10^9 photons for every baryon. So we think (for some reason we don't fully understand, as Nabeshin said) that there was just slightly more matter produced than antimatter, by only 1 part in 10^9. So after it all annihilated, we were left with matter and photons.hubble_bubble said:Are there any answers to this question? If equal amounts of matter and antimatter were in existence at the big bang surely each annihilation would remove equal amounts of matter and antimatter?
phyzguy said:Bear in mind that the asymmetry between matter and antimatter appears to be very small. Today in the universe there are about 10^9 photons for every baryon. So we think (for some reason we don't fully understand, as Nabeshin said) that there was just slightly more matter produced than antimatter, by only 1 part in 10^9. So after it all annihilated, we were left with matter and photons.
hubble_bubble said:Are there any answers to this question? If equal amounts of matter and antimatter were in existence at the big bang surely each annihilation would remove equal amounts of matter and antimatter?
carlgrace said:At least some of the asymmety is due to CP violation. Read up on the BaBar experiment. B and anti-B interactions were observed to lead to stable matter in some cases.
hubble_bubble said:Maybe antimatter is just not meant to exist on its own and is just another component of matter. We think of it as antimatter whereas it is really only a subset of matter.
Yes and yes. Sufficiently high energy radiation can produce mesons. These energy levels are typical of stars and radiation they emit, but can also be due decay of many naturally occurring radioactive isotopes.hubble_bubble said:I've just read up on mesons. Would they occur naturally and do they interact with matter?
Antimatter is a type of matter that has the same mass as regular matter but has an opposite electrical charge. It is scarce because it is produced in very small quantities and is difficult to store and study.
Antimatter is produced through high-energy collisions between particles, such as in particle accelerators like the Large Hadron Collider. It can also be produced naturally in certain radioactive decays.
Studying the scarcity of antimatter can help us understand the fundamental laws of physics and could potentially lead to new technologies. It can also help us understand why there is more matter than antimatter in the universe.
Currently, creating large quantities of antimatter is very difficult and expensive. However, scientists are continuously working on improving production methods and finding ways to store antimatter for longer periods of time.
Antimatter could potentially be used as a clean and powerful energy source, as well as in medical imaging and cancer treatments. It could also be used in space propulsion systems for long-distance space travel.