CERN physicists have for the first time been able to transport antimatter outside the facility where it was created. To do this, 92 antiprotons were placed in a special trap in a truck and transported to another part of the laboratory.
CERN physicists have for the first time been able to transport antimatter outside the facility where it was created. To do this, 92 antiprotons were placed in a special trap in a truck and transported to another part of the laboratory.
As Nature reports, the experiment took place on March 24 at CERN near Geneva. The container with antiprotons was transported by truck over a distance of more than 8 km, and the trip itself lasted about 30 minutes. The maximum speed during transportation reached 42 km/h.
Antimatter is extremely difficult to store because it instantly annihilates, i.e. turns into energy, when it comes into contact with ordinary matter. That is why the particles were transported in a special installation, where they are held by a magnetic field and do not touch the walls of the container. The system works using superconducting magnets and is cooled to about −269 °C, and a vacuum is maintained inside to avoid collisions with matter.
The goal of the experiment is not just transportation. The scientists plan to deliver antiprotons to environments with lower experimental noise, where they can be studied more precisely than in the so-called «antimatter factory» at CERN, where they are created.
CERN notes that this opens up new possibilities for studying the fundamental properties of antimatter. In particular, scientists are trying to understand why the Universe is dominated by ordinary matter, although after the Big Bang it should have been formed in about the same amount as antimatter.
CERN is currently the only place in the world where antiprotons are produced in quantities suitable for research. The idea of transporting antimatter has been discussed for decades, but it has only recently become possible thanks to the development of technologies for containing and controlling such particles.
Previously, dev.ua wrote about how the ALICE detector at CERN confirmed that during ultraperipheral collisions of lead ions at the LHC, nuclear transmutation was observed for the first time — lead nuclei lost protons and turned into gold.
