It’s official, CERN researchers have created a beam of anti-hydrogen. Antimatter basically consists of subatomic particles that have the same mass as ordinary matter, but an opposite charge. Previously, the team has generated antimatter, but never in a way that allowed careful study. This new anti-hydrogen beam they managed to trap, ould change everything, including what we know about particle physics. Continue reading for a video and more information.
According to Dvice: “CERN created the anti-hydrogen beam with an Antiproton Decelerator, which allowed them to mix antielectrons with antiprotons. They worked with hydrogen because it is the simplest element, consisting of just one proton and one electron. But producing the anti-hydrogen wasn’t enough. To study the anti-hydrogen, the scientists at CERN also needed to hold onto it for a little bit. Because both hydrogen and anti-hydrogen react to magnetic fields, CERN created a super strong magnetic field to capture the anti-hydrogen. This, unfortunately, comes with a side effect: the magnetic field makes the anti-hydrogen difficult to study with a spectroscope. To counter that, CERN figured out how to pull the antiatoms out of the magnetic field and trap them into a beam, which allows for further study of the antiatoms without magnetic interference.”
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