ORIGIN

Cosmological

The Big Bang Theory, our best guess upon how our universe was created, states that our universe began about 15 billion years ago. At the time of the big bang, there was a giant cluster of energy, a primordial condition of extreme temperature and density. In other words, our universe was a tiny sphere of enormous energy.

When things get very hot, like how our universe was back then, strange things happen with the present energy. The temperature of the universe at the time of the big bang is thought to be immeasurably high. In that heat, the energy started to convert into pairs of Matter and Antimatter. And then, the pairs combined again to reproduce the same amount of energy spent to create the pair.

Understand, that the universe was extremely hot, yet extremely small. So the Exchange between energy and matter-antimatter pairs were almost simultaneous, happening immensely fast, and very many times.

Scientists believe that somehow, during this process of switching between energy and matter-antimatter pair, there was an asymmetry, or an unevenness between the number of matter and the number of antimatter created. For about every million pairs of matter and antimatter created, an extra particle of matter has been created. When all the million pairs fused back into energy, that remaining matter was left alone. This process happened, about as many times as the number of particles in our universe. That is quite many times! Indeed, our matter-dominated universe today is merely the leftover matter from the asymmetry of the particles.

Matter is found everywhere. The matter created at the Big Bang was sufficient to form into all the stars and galaxies that exist in our universe today. But does that mean that there are no antimatters left in this world?

Scientists understand that there are still traces of natural antimatter that exist in our universe. Certain comets, for instance, are composed of antimatter. For example, a comet called 9P/Temple 1 , shown in the picture below, is composed of antimatter particles. The brilliant light that is emitted comes from the Annihilation process occurring as the antimatter on the surface of the comet meets the matter in space. Annihilation is the simple process in which matter and antimatter combine to produce energy. The reverse process in which energy turns into matter-antimatter pairs is called exnihilation.

In the light of these antimatter comets, we can wonder if there could actually be a separate, antimatter-dominated universe beyond our knowledge, despite what the scientists predicted. Evidence shows that there exist antimatter galaxies in the distant space of our universe. Scientists observed collisions or mergers among galaxies to be more frequent than anticipated, from which they predict that there are galaxies made entirely of antimatter. However, the infrequency of these observations make it implausible to believe that there could be a whole separate universe of antimatter.

Artificial Manufacture

Since Antimatter is created when energy transforms into a tangible form, it is created everywhere there’s enough energy. As our sun burns hotter than 15 million Kelvin, antimatter forms quickly in its flares, and then disappears again into energy after combining with matter. Scientists predict that the energy in the antimatter created in large flare could power all the energy needs in the U.S. for two years.

In order to research more on how useful antimatter could prove to be, many laboratories have been set up to create the desired antimatter particles. Such laboratories have been set up in many places in United States, such as Brookhaven, Betavia, Stanford, and many other U.S. cities. Europeans have also developed a laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland, called CERN.

In these labs, molecules are accelerated to very high speeds - approaching the speed of light. When two molecules of incredible speeds collapse, a great amount of kinetic energy is turned loose, which form into matter-antimatter pairs. The type of antimatter formed (whether it is an antiproton, an antineutron, or a positron), is determined by the amount of available kinetic energy that turn into tangible form. Scientists calculate this energy by measuring the speeds and the mass of the accelerated particles, and they can predict the outcome with Einstein's famous equation, E=mc².

However, many scientists were challenged by the fact that whenever they were able to accumulate antimatter, it was difficult to retain it. They were only able to use the antimatter sample for very short periods of time, and the sample would disappear.

The produced antimatter could be used in two ways. The newly-created antimatter particles bear enormous energy. Scientists could study the possible uses of antimatter in its high-energy state, or slow down the particles and study its properties. The technique of slowing down these particles, developed in 1978 by Dehmelt. By taking positrons directly from the radioactive source and utilizing the magnetron drift of the particles, he was able to confine single positrons for months, thus solving the problem that frustrated many scientists.