Antimatter belt found around the Earth

[astroron]

News just in from the BBC:)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14405122
This is an interesting finding.
Cheers

[mswhin63]

Very interesting, thanks for the link, may download the paper later have a peak. Look interesting.

[renormalised]

Interesting, but unsurprising. Their existence had been predicted for quite some time. It was only a matter of time before they were found.

I doubt, though, whether there'd be enough antiprotons to power a spaceship. You'd need several tons of antimatter to do that.

I'll have to read the paper.

[CraigS]

Source: Extraction of Antiparticles Concentrated in Planetary Magnetic Fields, (April 2006). James Bickford Principal Investigator, NIAC



Cheers

[renormalised]

28 antiprotons.....

10..9..8..7..6..5..4..3..2..1...... pfft...damn, we only moved 0.5 microns:):P

Go to warp 9, Scotty!!!!:):P

[multiweb]

How far is the next petrol station? Saturn? Get out and start pushing :P

[CraigS]

Cheers

[multiweb]

Always the optimist Craig. :) I like that. :thumbsup:

[renormalised]

Let's be realistic here, Craig. 28 antiprotons is hardly a nanogram!!!. A proton/antiproton only weighs 1.67 x 10^-24g. Even a million of them would be 9 orders of magnitude too light.

The 15ng supply max they say Earth has is squillions of them!!!. That might be enough, but they're awfully spread out. They would be very hard to collect. Plus, it apparently takes several years to replenish the supply of them when they're exhausted. Unless you want to smash up a few large asteroids and build a ring system around the planet!!!!:):P

[xelasnave]

Very interesting.
As often happens I go to a suggestd link and that takes me to another, and another etc but I found this (below link) finally.

I had no idea there was "serious" consideration of anti matter propulsion however....

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/1999/prop12apr99_1/


A suggestion was that "faster than light speeds" would be achieved :shrug:...

Although it all sounds like impossible I find it exciting we may be looking at humans first serious consideration of interstella travel hopes. Containment ..not a problem.

WOW what a time we live in...I am still coming to grips with the fact you can buy a 3d printer for about 10k...

alex:):):)

[xelasnave]

The question arrises ..where did all the anti matter go..on the basis that equal amounts of anti matter and matter were created in the big bang... does anyone have a view on this? I am interested at what point and over what period of time the two may have interacted...

alex

[renormalised]

Alex, antimatter for power and propulsion has been seriously considered for decades. They just have to find a way of producing it in quantity and cheaply.

[renormalised]

Actually, not quite equal amounts were created. It appears there was an overabundance of matter to antimatter of 1 part in a million. What we have left is the matter we see.

[CraigS]

Frame dragging ...

Galaxy sized twist in time pulls violating particles back into line (http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-07-galaxy-sized-violating-particles-line.html) (July 14, 2011).




Cheers

[xelasnave]

Thanks Carl I was aware of that ..in fact I am sure I read someone suggesting 1%... cant remember where but probably one of the CERN experiments... no matter...a difference is accepted thinking any percentage difference will leave a balance in favour of one side or the other.

I was not trying to suggest if equal amounts then one would entirely cancel the other.. the period of interaction is what I am trying to determine.

I guess if they are hoping to find answers via the CBR it may have been in the inflationary epoch...

There must be some trace of the resultant energy.

I dont know and looking for a pointer to research is all... but it occurred to me that maybe the energy release powered inflation... which although fanciful prompted me to wonder about the impact of what would have been massive energy releases and what happened to its footprint.

alex:):)

[xelasnave]

Does this approach suggest that the anti matter is still out there...still seperated via this initial distribution?

alex:):):)

[xelasnave]

Yes Carl I can see that now, I never read about it because I thought it was associated with SCFI...

alex:):):)

[CraigS]

From Hadley's paper …



Cheers
PS: The point being CP violation tests have an inbuilt asymmetry caused by the known gravitational potential of spinning masses. The Galaxy is the source with the largest effect. Extrapolating to the larger picture of the universe's view of CP violation, would still come down to other observations/theoretical arguments, I believe. (A bit of a stretch, but still, a plausible hypothesis, I guess).

[renormalised]

CP violation caused by frame dragging of large spinning masses might have some effect at present within the universe, but to hope that would account for the baryon asymmetry of the universe is probably stretching it a little too far. The amount of frame dragging needed to cause the violation in a structure such as the universe, with the amount of matter/antimatter that was present early on would be staggering. It would have to spin much faster than c, let alone expand faster. The effects would still be observable even after 13.7Ga. Not only in the disparity between matter/antimatter content, but also imprinted upon the CMB and possibly other structures within the universe. Just how much it would affect the anisotropy in space time is still open to debate.

Needs more work, for sure.

[xelasnave]

CERN will investigate if gravity acts on anti matter the same as matter... will anti matter fall up? they think it will act the same as matter but wow if it falls up we can start palning the battle star.

Found reading about anti matter very helpful in understanding symetry better but was hard going.

alex:):):)

[sjastro]

I had a read of the Hadley paper and found it dubious.



What has this got to do Baryon asymmetry?
The only CP violation observed are the K and B mesons both of which are hadrons not baryons.
The potential for CP violation can only occur where particles and antiparticles exist in some reaction process such as B-decay (CP is not violated but P is) or particle/antiparticle oscillations (where CP is violated).

The vast majority of particles and their antiparticles don't participate in CP violated reactions.

That is only touching the surface, the mathematics is another story.

Regards

Steven

[CraigS]

Isn't there still a question about why CP violation doesn't extend to the strong force ?

I'm not going to defend Hadley's paper .. all I see him doing is constructing a straw-man hypothesis and then coming up with ways of testing it. This seems to be a reasonable way of eliminating possibilities. Whether or not the initial hypothesis is based on sound theory, (or is a wild-goose chase), however is a good question.

(Alex asked whether anyone has a view on the seeming imbalance of matter/anti matter. It seems that Hadley has one !)
:)

Cheers

[renormalised]

I still haven't read the paper yet, but if it's as you say, Steven, then I find it hard how Hadley came to his conclusions.