Researchers at North Carolina State University have produced the world's most powerful antimatter beam.

"There is a reactor in Munich, Germany, that has been generating those types of radiation beams for some time now, and our analysis of the data shows that we have exceeded what they have reported," Dr. Ayman Hawari, director of the Nuclear Reactor Program at North Carolina State, told the university's Web site.

The beam, consisting of an intense burst of positrons, was generated at the school's PULSTAR campus nuclear reactor, which first went online in 1972.

A positron is the "mirror image" of an electron — it has the same weight and properties of the most basic atomic particle, but is positively rather than negatively charged.

Theoretical physicists believe there are equal amounts of matter and antimatter in the universe, but few antimatter particles have been found "in the wild."

North Carolina State researcher hope the positron beam will form the basis of antimatter-based instruments.



http://www.ncsu.edu/featured-stories/innovation-discovery/oct-2007/antimatter-nuclear/index.php

10/24/2007 8:35:46 AM

FINALLY!!

we can now beam information with much more intensity

10/24/2007 8:38:26 AM

they should shoot that at shit and blow shit up

10/24/2007 8:39:22 AM

10/24/2007 8:40:54 AM

now you've just gone on and pissed of the germans. great.

10/24/2007 8:41:11 AM

10/24/2007 8:54:53 AM

[old]

10/24/2007 8:59:35 AM

^^^^ MONEY

[Edited on October 24, 2007 at 9:00 AM. Reason : ^4]

10/24/2007 8:59:36 AM

how they gonna make it fit on a shark?

10/24/2007 9:01:23 AM

i was a part of this...a big part

10/24/2007 9:27:28 AM

alright! we can now power our warp drives!

10/24/2007 9:41:35 AM

or find out what the fuck happened to the Mets

10/24/2007 9:43:34 AM

so what exactly do you do with an antimatter ray (serious question)?

10/24/2007 9:47:20 AM

^.

10/24/2007 9:49:50 AM

right now i'm assuming research.

in the future, when matter and antimatter interact, they release a LOT of energy.

so probably weapons.

10/24/2007 9:50:49 AM

Quote :

""The idea here is that if we create this intense beam of antimatter electrons - the complete opposite of the electron, basically - we can then use them in investigating and understanding the new types of materials being used in many applications," Hawari said. Now that the intense beam has been generated, members of NC State's nuclear engineering program and their collaborators will turn their focus to developing instrumentation such as antimatter spectrometers and potentially long-discussed antimatter microscopes, which would allow for a much more detailed look into materials at the atomic level."

10/24/2007 9:52:02 AM

nobody has figured out my reference?

10/24/2007 9:54:09 AM

we figured it out when you took it from either Angels and Demons or Da Vinci Code

guessing Angels and Demons since that deals with anti-matter, so

[Edited on October 24, 2007 at 9:55 AM. Reason : gg]

10/24/2007 9:55:20 AM

I WONDER WHAT KIND OF RATING THIS WILL GIVE ME ON WORLD OF WARCRAFT

10/24/2007 9:56:39 AM

^

10/24/2007 9:57:59 AM

Quote :

"right now i'm assuming research. in the future, when matter and antimatter interact, they release a LOT of energy. so probably weapons."

1. Energy input is greater than energy output.
2. Annihilation of a positron / electron pair releases 1.022 MeV (far less than a fission reaction)
3. Storing antimatter for use in weapons would require intense magnetic fields and a fairly high consumption of power.

For weapons, annihilating protons (> 2GeV per reaction) could make an effective bomb. Or even better, just release the antimatter in the vicinity of the target and let the protons annihilate and then the neutron, gamma, and beta radiation kill everybody. (Though this would probably cause severe structural damage to buildings)

10/24/2007 10:08:22 AM

so i was reading on wiki about antimatter and read this statement:

Quote :

"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."

i get the whole antielectron + antiproton = antihydrogen, but how does an antihydrogen and a regular hydrogen interact? can you add another antihydrogen and an antioxygen and make antiwater?

10/24/2007 1:27:34 PM

Quote :

"nobody has figured out my reference? "

angels and demons

durrrr de duuuurrrrr

10/24/2007 1:34:28 PM

Quote :

"2. Annihilation of a positron / electron pair releases 1.022 MeV (far less than a fission reaction)"

the energy released by an equilavent mass of positron/electron pair >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> than the energy released by fission of U235

10/24/2007 1:36:28 PM

well no shit, there several orders of magnitude difference in mass equivalency there

10/24/2007 2:01:48 PM

so can somebody answer my question? i was serious

10/24/2007 2:06:03 PM

we haven't observed it, though it would probably work that way... though the effective charges would be reversed, with the hydrogens each having a -1 charge value and oxygen having a +2 value...

I highly doubt it would have the same physical properties as water b/c the hydrogen bonding would be radically different.

10/24/2007 2:15:22 PM

Quote :

"the energy released by an equilavent mass of positron/electron pair >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> than the energy released by fission of U235"

How do you expect to contain such a huge quantity of positrons? Yes, annihilation of a fraction of a gram of antimatter would far exceed the explosive power of a fission bomb containing thousands of grams of uranium. Do you know how much energy it would take to produce even a milligram of antimatter?

10/24/2007 2:44:03 PM

I reported on this on my End of the World blog.

http://thefateoftheworld.blogspot.com/

11/8/2007 10:45:16 AM

what's it got to do with cherenkov radiation?

11/8/2007 10:47:19 AM

all i know is that we can control U-235, U-238, Pu-239, etc as well as the fission products

get back to me when you can do that with anitmatter

11/8/2007 10:49:15 AM

Don't positron me, bro!

11/8/2007 11:35:43 AM

jessiejepp is in nuclear engineering...maybe she could do an article on this to make up for the drought article

11/8/2007 11:38:52 AM

Quote :

"so what exactly do you do with an antimatter ray (serious question)?"

Positrons are a form of anti-matter (anti-electrons). The beam is a high-intensity, anti-electron beam.

Quote :

"what's it got to do with cherenkov radiation?"

Nothing - cherenkov occurs when charged particles (like electrons) move faster in a medium than light. It's energy radiated by the traveling photon in matter. (Note that the speed of light is not the same in all media!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation

Quote :

"all i know is that we can control U-235, U-238, Pu-239, etc as well as the fission products get back to me when you can do that with anitmatter"

We can - with strong magnetic fields. That's how we can control a positron beam.

11/8/2007 2:13:25 PM

^ Good first post.

Reading about this somehow got me to this:
http://stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tech/Beam/DeathStar.html

11/8/2007 2:15:51 PM