How to create antimatter
Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2017 12:44 am
Ahh, Egg and her scientific madness.
WARNING: Do not try this at your home planet, you are at risk of destroying it.
1. Get a hadron collider.
I don't think this is affordable yet, but better save up some 13 billion dollars.
However, this is very inefficient and would cost 10 quadrillion euros to make a single gram (save up even more money, kids) as it can only produce one billionth of a gram a year.
At CERN, protons with an energy of 26 GeV (about 30 times their mass at rest) collide with nuclei inside a metal cylinder called a target. About four proton-antiproton pairs are produced in every million collisions. The antiprotons are separated from other particles using magnetic fields and are guided to the Antiproton Decelerator, where they are slowed down from 96% to 10% of the speed of light. They are ejected and run through beam pipes into experiments to be trapped and stored.
Once you make it, use it immediately as it cannot run into ordinary matter without exploding. If you somehow make a single gram, the explosive power is equal to 100 quadrillion joules, or 21 kilotonnes of TNT, 1 quintillion kg to wipe the rock we live on to pieces.
1.5: Notes
First, you need a very good vacuum so that the antimatter doesn’t inadvertently bump into a stray atom in the air. Then you need to keep it away from the sides of your container as these are made of matter too. The solution is a ‘magnetic bottle’ that uses electric and magnetic fields to imprison the antimatter.
To study antihydrogen, however, you first need to make and store lots of atoms. The challenge is getting a positron and an antiproton near enough to each other that their electrical attraction has a chance to ensnare them and form an atom of antihydrogen before they’ve annihilated with ordinary matter.
WARNING: Do not try this at your home planet, you are at risk of destroying it.
1. Get a hadron collider.
I don't think this is affordable yet, but better save up some 13 billion dollars.
However, this is very inefficient and would cost 10 quadrillion euros to make a single gram (save up even more money, kids) as it can only produce one billionth of a gram a year.
At CERN, protons with an energy of 26 GeV (about 30 times their mass at rest) collide with nuclei inside a metal cylinder called a target. About four proton-antiproton pairs are produced in every million collisions. The antiprotons are separated from other particles using magnetic fields and are guided to the Antiproton Decelerator, where they are slowed down from 96% to 10% of the speed of light. They are ejected and run through beam pipes into experiments to be trapped and stored.
Once you make it, use it immediately as it cannot run into ordinary matter without exploding. If you somehow make a single gram, the explosive power is equal to 100 quadrillion joules, or 21 kilotonnes of TNT, 1 quintillion kg to wipe the rock we live on to pieces.
1.5: Notes
First, you need a very good vacuum so that the antimatter doesn’t inadvertently bump into a stray atom in the air. Then you need to keep it away from the sides of your container as these are made of matter too. The solution is a ‘magnetic bottle’ that uses electric and magnetic fields to imprison the antimatter.
To study antihydrogen, however, you first need to make and store lots of atoms. The challenge is getting a positron and an antiproton near enough to each other that their electrical attraction has a chance to ensnare them and form an atom of antihydrogen before they’ve annihilated with ordinary matter.