What does antimatter mean for science?

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the concept of antimatter, exploring its properties, potential existence of antimatter molecules, and implications for science. Participants examine theoretical aspects, chemical properties, and the relationship between matter and antimatter, while also touching on related topics such as energy conservation and the nature of gravity.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Conceptual clarification
  • Debate/contested

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants propose that if antimatter atoms exist, then every atom has an antimatter counterpart, leading to questions about the creation of antimatter molecules like anti-H2O or anti-HCl.
  • There is a suggestion that antimatter molecules would possess properties almost identical to their regular counterparts, as the charge is flipped but bond strengths remain the same.
  • Concerns are raised about why antimatter annihilates with normal matter, questioning if this contradicts the law of conservation of mass.
  • Some participants clarify that while matter and antimatter annihilate each other, energy and momentum are conserved in the process, indicating that mass is not conserved.
  • There are discussions about the stability of antimatter molecules if kept away from normal matter, and the potential for creating heavier antimatter elements, though it becomes increasingly difficult.
  • One participant mentions the idea of antimatter being an ideal fuel for starships, referencing popular culture.
  • Questions arise about the relationship between antimatter and gravity, with some expressing disappointment that antimatter does not imply negative gravity.
  • There are comments on the peculiar terminology used in physics, suggesting a whimsical aspect to the field.
  • Some participants express anticipation for future discoveries regarding antimatter and its properties.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

The discussion contains multiple competing views and remains unresolved on several points, particularly regarding the implications of antimatter's properties and its relationship with established physical laws.

Contextual Notes

Participants express uncertainty about the existence of certain antimatter particles, such as anti-neutrons, and the implications of energy conservation in the context of matter-antimatter annihilation.

Who May Find This Useful

This discussion may be of interest to those exploring theoretical physics, chemistry, and the implications of antimatter in scientific research and popular culture.

AdrianHudson
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So I have been doing research and if antimatter atoms can exist, does that mean every atom now a days has an antimatter counterpart? I know we have discovered anti-hydrogen but anyways I'm trailing off.

Could you theoretically create anti-molecules? Obviously realistically at this time antimatter is hard as hell to keep contained for any length of time but if it was possible, what would these anti-molecules possess? Like say anti-H20 or anti-HCl?

Thanks for the responses - Adrian
:)

P.S not sure what place this belongs but this seems like a good place.
 
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Physics news on Phys.org
By possesses I mean the properties of the molecule. Just clearing up any confusion.
 
From what I understand, anti-matter is just a traditional elementary particle with its charge flipped. Anti-hydrogen is simply a hydrogen atom made out of smaller (negative) anti-protons and (positive) anti-electrons. That being said, I'm not sure if there is such thing as anti-neutron or other questionable cases..

Anyways, I would assume that an anti-molecule would have almost identical properties to the corresponding regular molecule. Why? Well, charge still remains the same even if the sign is flipped, so all of bonds holding the compounds together would be the same strength. Much of chemistry and the properties of compounds come from bond strength.

Also, I would assume that a lump of the anti-matter would be the same color as its corresponding regular matter. This is for the same reason, the charges are the same, thus, the orbitals likely look the exact same and have the same energy levels. This would lead to the same light reflection properties
 
Hertz said:
From what I understand, anti-matter is just a traditional elementary particle with its charge flipped. Anti-hydrogen is simply a hydrogen atom made out of smaller (negative) anti-protons and (positive) anti-electrons. That being said, I'm not sure if there is such thing as anti-neutron or other questionable cases..

Anyways, I would assume that an anti-molecule would have almost identical properties to the corresponding regular molecule. Why? Well, charge still remains the same even if the sign is flipped, so all of bonds holding the compounds together would be the same strength. Much of chemistry and the properties of compounds come from bond strength.

Also, I would assume that a lump of the anti-matter would be the same color as its corresponding regular matter. This is for the same reason, the charges are the same, thus, the orbitals likely look the exact same and have the same energy levels. This would lead to the same light reflection properties

Thanks for the response:)!

But if the matter is the same just the charge flipped, why does antimatter destroy itself? I don't know if that's actually what it does but I am guessing that's what it does.

To add to this. Isn't there a law where "No matter can be created or destroyed" and wouldn't anti-matter break this law by, when being put with its non-antimatter counter part won't the anti-atom and normal atom annihilate each other? This breaks that law correct?
 
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AdrianHudson said:
Thanks for the response:)!

But if the matter is the same just the charge flipped, why does antimatter destroy itself? I don't know if that's actually what it does but I am guessing that's what it does.

To add to this. Isn't there a law where "No matter can be created or destroyed" and wouldn't anti-matter break this law by, when being put with its non-antimatter counter part won't the anti-atom and normal atom annihilate each other? This breaks that law correct?

Not if you regard mass and energy as interchangeable / the same basic stuff. This has been the view for quite some time, now and your "law" was superceded, along with the "energy canon be created or destroyed" one. Of course, for most purposes, they are still alive and kicking!
 
sophiecentaur said:
Not if you regard mass and energy as interchangeable / the same basic stuff. This has been the view for quite some time, now and your "law" was superceded, along with the "energy canon be created or destroyed" one. Of course, for most purposes, they are still alive and kicking!

Thankya for clearing that up for me! :)

This article do you think they will find what they are looking for?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10486661/Scientists-race-to-prove-existence-of-Star-Trek-antimatter.html

I mean I know they probably spruced it up a bit to make an interesting article but do you think negative "gravity" will be found in these new particles being made?
 
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AdrianHudson said:
But if the matter is the same just the charge flipped, why does antimatter destroy itself? I don't know if that's actually what it does but I am guessing that's what it does.
It doesn't destroy itself. Matter and antimatter annihilates ("destroy" each other).

AdrianHudson said:
To add to this. Isn't there a law where "No matter can be created or destroyed" and wouldn't anti-matter break this law by, when being put with its non-antimatter counter part won't the anti-atom and normal atom annihilate each other? This breaks that law correct?
(The total) energy and momentum is conserved in annihilation. Mass is not conserved.

See e.g. positron annihilation.
 
To answer your basic question, theoretically any existing molecule could be replicated with an antimatter equivalent. Creating the higher weight anti-elements becomes more and more difficult, and thus expensive, but not impossible. They should be 100% stable if not allowed to contact normal matter.
 
  • #10
RocketSci5KN said:
To answer your basic question, theoretically any existing molecule could be replicated with an antimatter equivalent. Creating the higher weight anti-elements becomes more and more difficult, and thus expensive, but not impossible. They should be 100% stable if not allowed to contact normal matter.

Another poster was saying that these elements wouldn't be much different from their normal matter counterparts except the charge, but this difference of charge wouldn't that matter?

P.s I just realized I threw a pun in the. Matter.. Matters heh :cool:
 
  • #11
They would be expected to react with other antimatter molecules in a similar way to that which 'normal' matter modules react with each other. However you must keep them away from all normal matter, otherwise they will cause a micro'-BOOM'. It's an ideal fuel for Starships (though sub-c) ...ala Star Trek...
 
  • #12
AdrianHudson said:
I mean I know they probably spruced it up a bit to make an interesting article but do you think negative "gravity" will be found in these new particles being made?

That's nothing to do with the 'anti'ness of antimatter. That's a disappointment for many people, who first come across the term.
 
  • #13
sophiecentaur said:
That's nothing to do with the 'anti'ness of antimatter. That's a disappointment for many people, who first come across the term.

Hmm antimatter is weird then, it has an opposite charge then normal matter and annihilates Itself with normal matter this stuff is so weird.
 
  • #14
The whole thing is weird - along with the names that have been chosen for lots of the concepts: 'strangeness', 'color', 'quark'. I think there must be a looniness bug, being passed round the West Coast of the USA, which accounts for the actions and choices of many really brilliant people.
Look upon it as 'anti' because it annihilates normal particles and forget the mass bit. Gravity and all the other forces are still a long way apart.
One day they may find something to unify it all together in a verifiable way.
 
  • #15
I have not yet seen any experimental evidence of whether antimatter shows anti-gravity effects. I suspect that we will soon know this answer as they are continue having success in storing this stuff for long periods.
 
  • #16
Adrian,

It's beyond cool - get the book I referenced and prepare to get you mind blown ;-> With enough antimatter, we can travel to other stars... (though this amount could also destroy a planet ;-< )
 
  • #17
RocketSci5KN said:
Adrian,

It's beyond cool - get the book I referenced and prepare to get you mind blown ;-> With enough antimatter, we can travel to other stars... (though this amount could also destroy a planet ;-< )

:3 please let's hope we can travel intergalactically before I'm dead I want to own a planet.
 
  • #18
RocketSci5KN said:
I have not yet seen any experimental evidence of whether antimatter shows anti-gravity effects. I suspect that we will soon know this answer as they are continue having success in storing this stuff for long periods.

There is loads of evidence that it has normal 'positive' mass because it moves the right way when deflected by a magnetic field. You are being just a tad too fanciful with this, I think. Just accept it and work for your Nobel Prize later. :wink:
 
  • #19
sophiecentaur said:
There is loads of evidence that it has normal 'positive' mass because it moves the right way when deflected by a magnetic field. You are being just a tad too fanciful with this, I think. Just accept it and work for your Nobel Prize later. :wink:

Wait so it have normal gravitational properties :( ?

Quick question though, so you guys know the Higgs boson, doesn't that give normal matter its mass? So if the antimatter counterpart what would that do? Give it negative mass?
 
  • #20
You could also have a look at this page:

Does antimatter fall up or down? (University of California)

Please note that this text is from 1999. I remember reading about an upcoming experiment on the gravitational interaction of antimatter, this was maybe half a year/a year ago, if I remember correctly. The results ought to be available somewhere, I reckon. I'll go look for them on the net and post in this thread if I find something.
 
  • #21
DennisN said:
You could also have a look at this page:

Does antimatter fall up or down? (University of California)

Please note that this text is from 1999. I remember reading about an upcoming experiment on the gravitational interaction of antimatter, this was maybe half a year/a year ago, if I remember correctly. The results ought to be available somewhere, I reckon. I'll go look for them on the net and post in this thread if I find something.

Is this what you're looking for?

http://zeenews.india.com/news/science/cern-scientists-to-look-for-antigravity_893840.html
 
  • #22
AdrianHudson said:
Quick question though, so you guys know the Higgs boson, doesn't that give normal matter its mass? So if the antimatter counterpart what would that do? Give it negative mass?

Like the photon, the Higgs is its own anti-particle.
 
  • #23
Nugatory said:
Like the photon, the Higgs is its own anti-particle.

Hmm I'm not quite sure what you mean. Care to explain to me haha:) sorry I'm not totally caught up with what the higgs actually is.
 
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  • #24
AdrianHudson said:
Hmm I'm not quite sure what you mean. Care to explain to me haha:) sorry I'm not totally caught up with what the higgs actually is.

The anti-particle of the Higgs is the Higgs (kinda sort of a little bit like negative zero and zero are the same number). Therefore, the anti-Higgs will have the same effect as the Higgs, because it is the Higgs.

[This is a total hand-waving argument. It's intuitively sound, but don't kid yourself that just because it makes sense you're gaining an understanding of particle physics or gravitation]
 
  • #25
Nugatory said:
The anti-particle of the Higgs is the Higgs (kinda sort of a little bit like negative zero and zero are the same number). Therefore, the anti-Higgs will have the same effect as the Higgs, because it is the Higgs.

[This is a total hand-waving argument. It's intuitively sound, but don't kid yourself that just because it makes sense you're gaining an understanding of particle physics or gravitation]

So I hear a lot about the standard model and about how they can't fit gravity into the model very well (if I'm correct) would they unification of gravity into the standard model allow us a better understanding of antimatter?
 
  • #26
AdrianHudson said:
Is this what you're looking for?

http://zeenews.india.com/news/science/cern-scientists-to-look-for-antigravity_893840.html

Yeah, it was the ALPHA I read about, I remember it now...

Description and first application of a new technique to measure the gravitational mass of antihydrogen
(Nature, Comm., 30 April 2013)
Paper: http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v4/n4/full/ncomms2787.html
Pdf: http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v4/n4/pdf/ncomms2787.pdf

Paper said:
We report directly measured limits on the ratio of the gravitational mass to the inertial mass of antimatter. On the basis of goodness-of-fit tests comparing the positions of actual and simulated annihilation events, we can rule out ratios above F=75 (statistics alone) and F=110 (including worst-case systematic effects) for gravity, and below F=−65 (combined systematic and statistical effects) for antigravity, at the 5% significance level.

Obviously, our limits are far from the F=1 regime where one could test for small deviations from the weak equivalence principle, but the methodology described here, coupled with planned and ongoing improvements to the ALPHA apparatus, should allow us to improve the measurement substantially.

Article: "ALPHA experiment presents first direct evidence of how atoms of antimatter interact with gravity" (PhysOrg)
http://phys.org/news/2013-04-alpha-evidence-atoms-antimatter-interact.html

PhysOrg article said:
The first results, which measured the ratio of antihydrogen's unknown gravitational mass to its known inertial mass, did not settle the matter. Far from it. If an antihydrogen atom falls downward, its gravitational mass is no more than 110 times greater than its inertial mass. If it falls upward, its gravitational mass is at most 65 times greater.

What the results do show is that measuring antimatter gravity is possible, using an experimental method that points toward much greater precision in future. They describe their technique in the April 30, 2013 edition of Nature Communications.

So it seems it was pretty much a test of the experiment technology (with inconclusive results). Well, it seems new ALPHA experiments are upcoming. Interesting.
 
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  • #27
DennisN said:
Yeah, it was the ALPHA I read about, I remember it now...

Description and first application of a new technique to measure the gravitational mass of antihydrogen
(Nature, Comm., 30 April 2013)
Paper: http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v4/n4/full/ncomms2787.html
Pdf: http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v4/n4/pdf/ncomms2787.pdf
Article: "ALPHA experiment presents first direct evidence of how atoms of antimatter interact with gravity" (PhysOrg)
http://phys.org/news/2013-04-alpha-evidence-atoms-antimatter-interact.html
So it seems it was pretty much a test of the experiment technology (with inconclusive results). Well, it seems new ALPHA experiments are upcoming. Interesting.

So if they do find that the hydrogen they plan on testing does come out to have anti-gravity properties this would be pretty spectacular for math and science right !?
 
  • #28
AdrianHudson said:
So if they do find that the hydrogen they plan on testing does come out to have anti-gravity properties this would be pretty spectacular for math and science right !?

Any deviations - even small - from the expected behavior of antimatter would be interesting. However, I personally don't expect any, sorry :smile:.
But I could be wrong, of course. It will be interesting to follow the upcoming new ALPHA results.
 
  • #29
DennisN said:
Any deviations - even small - from the expected behavior of antimatter would be interesting. However, I personally don't expect any, sorry :smile:.
But I could be wrong, of course. It will be interesting to follow the upcoming new ALPHA results.

I guess we can't say for sure unless we test it eh :)!

I feel like if the results showed that the particles had even weak anti gravitational properties that star trek like travel is getting a lot closer to reality. :p
 
  • #30
This article was referenced in a past discussion in these forums and has some interesting details:


Antimatter gravity could explain Universe's expansion

Apr 13, 2011 By Lisa Zyga

the question of whether the gravitational interaction between matter and antimatter is attractive or repulsive so far has no clear answer.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2011-04-antimatter-gravity-universe-expansion.html#jCp
 

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