Once a particle of matter, always a particle of matter. Or not. Thanks to a quirk of quantum physics, four known particles made up of two different quarks—such as the electrically neutral D meson composed of a charm quark ...
General Physics
Apr 12, 2024
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A substance called antimatter is at the heart of one of the greatest mysteries of the universe. We know that every particle has an antimatter companion that is virtually identical to itself, but with the opposite charge. ...
General Physics
Oct 1, 2023
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For the first time, scientists have observed antimatter particles—the mysterious twins of the visible matter all around us—falling downwards due to the effect of gravity, Europe's physics lab CERN announced on Wednesday.
General Physics
Sep 30, 2023
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For those still holding out hope that antimatter levitates rather than falls in a gravitational field, like normal matter, the results of a new experiment are a dose of cold reality.
General Physics
Sep 27, 2023
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When theoretical physicists like myself say that we're studying why the universe exists, we sound like philosophers. But new data collected by researchers using Japan's Subaru telescope has revealed insights into that very ...
Astronomy
Jul 27, 2023
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In the first moments of our universe, countless numbers of protons, neutrons and electrons formed alongside their antimatter counterparts. As the universe expanded and cooled, almost all these matter and antimatter particles ...
General Physics
Jul 6, 2023
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Early in its history, shortly after the Big Bang, the universe was filled with equal amounts of matter and "antimatter"—particles that are matter counterparts but with opposite charge. But then, as space expanded, the universe ...
General Physics
Sep 8, 2022
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893
At CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC), studies of rare processes allow scientists to infer the presence of heavy particles, including undiscovered particles, that cannot be directly produced. Such particles are widely anticipated ...
Quantum Physics
Jul 14, 2022
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636
The final piece of an all-new detector has completed the first leg of its journey towards unlocking some of the most enduring mysteries of the universe.
General Physics
May 2, 2022
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A hybrid matter—an antimatter helium atom containing an antiproton, the proton's antimatter equivalent in place of an electron, has an unexpected response to laser light when immersed in superfluid helium, reports the ASACUSA ...
General Physics
Mar 17, 2022
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1757
In particle physics, antimatter is the extension of the concept of the antiparticle to matter, where antimatter is composed of antiparticles in the same way that normal matter is composed of particles. For example, an antielectron (a positron, an electron with a positive charge) and an antiproton (a proton with a negative charge) could form an antihydrogen atom in the same way that an electron and a proton form a normal matter hydrogen atom. Furthermore, mixing matter and antimatter would lead to the annihilation of both in the same way that mixing antiparticles and particles does, thus giving rise to high-energy photons (gamma rays) or other particle–antiparticle pairs.
There is considerable speculation as to why the observable universe is apparently almost entirely matter, whether there exist other places that are almost entirely antimatter instead, and what might be possible if antimatter could be harnessed, but at this time the apparent asymmetry of matter and antimatter in the visible universe is one of the greatest unsolved problems in physics. The process by which this asymmetry between particles and antiparticles developed is called baryogenesis.
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