The Solenoidal Tracker at RHIC (STAR) is a detector which specializes in tracking the thousands of particles produced by each ion collision at RHIC. (Photo : Brookhaven National Lab)
After the Big Bang event, the early universe produced matter and antimatter in almost equal amounts however, the existence of antimatter evolved into something extremely rare. Some important cosmic event may have contributed to the abundance of matter and the scarcity of antimatter however, scientists are still searching for evidence to prove theories.
In this new study, scientists measured for the first time ever, the forces that makes antimatter particles stick to each other where these new findings could provide evidence that may lead to how antimatter became rare in the universe today.
According to physicist Aihing Tang of the Brookhaven National Laboratory, antimatter is extremely rare that it has become a great mystery. Tang adds how this enigma has been known for decades and only little clues have emerged, making this one of the biggest mysteries in science. Anything that scientists can learn from antimatter can potentially solve this mystery.
Tang and researchers carried out an experiment with the help of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) located in Brookhaven. This collider is a giant particle accelerator than can smash atoms from pure gold, producing exquisite antimatter particles, possessing raw energy created from the collisions as researchers observed the antimatter particles with the antimatter proton counterpart.
The proton is a positivley charged particle found in the core of atoms in matter. However, this antimattter counterpart called the antiproton possesses a negative charge. Physicists then measured the force of the interaction of two antiprotons with each other and found out that the force between the two is attractive as long as there is a strong nuclear power that binds the protons together in an atom.
Antimatter behaves differently than matter and this experiment is suggesting how some sort of asymmetry may be behind this, that could explain the dominance of matter in the cosmos and the elusiveness of antimatter.
This new research is now providing new information about the structure of antimatter nuclei which are also composed of antiprotons and anitneutrons binded together. Researchers say that these results provide direct information between the interaction of two antiprotons which is one of the simplest systems in terms of antinucleons that are all so fundamental in understanding the more complex antinuclei including their properties.
This new study is published in the journal Nature.
