(right) Carl Anderson detected tracks of cosmic rays (far right) with the same mass as electrons, but

with a positive rather than negative electric charge

What

is

antimatter
All matter consists of atoms. An atom contains clouds of electrons circling a nucleus.The nucleus contains protons and neutrons, which in turn contain particles called quarks. But this is only half the story, as a brilliant British theoretical physicist, Paul Dirac, discovered in 1928, when he predicted antimatter. Dirac was investigating the equations of physics that describe how particles behave when they are very small (smaller than an atom) and moving very fast (close to the speed of light). He found a new equation that worked fine for electrons, which have negative electric charge.What surprised him was that it also worked for positively charged electrons.There was no getting away from the fact that his theoretical positive electrons were as good as everyday negative electrons at obeying the rules of physics.

How do we use antimatter?

Albert Einstein, photographed in 1920. In 1905 he published his Special Theory of Relativity, which includes his equation E = mc2

Cosmic ray

If you can make anti-electrons (positrons), antiprotons and antineutrons, can you make antiatoms and real antimatter? The answer in principle is yes. Add a positron to an antiproton and you get antihydrogen, and by adding more antiprotons and antineutrons and positrons you could produce a whole periodic table of antielements.You could make anti-anything from antimatter. It should be relatively straightforward to make anti-atoms by bringing together antiparticles, because antimatter obeys the same laws of physics as ordinary matter. Also, antiparticles are quite common. For instance, some radioactive nuclei eject positrons naturally when they decay. Antiparticles of various kinds also pop naturally out of the debris produced when fast moving matter particles, such as cosmic rays, are involved in high-energy collisions. Here, energy (E) is converted into equal amounts of mater and antimatter, with total mass (m) given by Einstein's celebrated equation E = mc2, where c is the speed of light.

Walter Oelert at CERN, Switzerland, following his creation of atoms of antihydrogen in 1995

(below left) Diracs equation is the only piece of mathematics in Westminster Abbey! It is inscribed on a plaque commemorating Dirac (above) who received the Nobel Prize for physics in 1933

Dirac found the equation so beautiful that he simply had to believe it, even though there was no experimental evidence for positive electrons. He had to wait four years to e proved right, when Carl Anderson discovered that a positive electron or positron is produced when high-energy particles from space, called cosmic rays, interact in the atmosphere.These were the first known antiparticles. Diracs equation applies equally well to other particles of matter protons, neutrons, quarks all of which must have corresponding antiparticles.The electron is unusual in that its antiparticle has been given a special name. Physicists unusually indicate an antiparticle by writing a bar over the symbol for the particle. So, for example, the antiproton, first observed in 1956, is _ written as p (for proton) with a line or bar above it, p. This is pronounced p-bar.

Storing antimatter
However, it is very difficult to store antimatter.This is because when matter and antimatter touch they destroy each other in a process called annihilation, and their combined mass produces a burst of high-energy radiation, again according to E = mc2, where E is the energy of the radiation.The problem can be solved using anti-particles that have an electric charge, because they can be stored using magnets and a vacuum. At laboratories such as the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, CERN, in Geneva, beams of antimatter particles (positrons or antiprotons) have been kept in evacuated pipes so that they did not collide with atoms (matter) in the air. Magnets steered the electrically charged antiparticles through pipes formed into rings several kilometres in circumference, which stored the antiparticles as they travelled round and round. In 1995 physicists at CERN succeeded in producing the first 9 anti-atoms ever made in the laboratory.They brought positrons and antiprotons together at low speeds and made antihydrogen. Experiments at CERN now produce and experiment on much larger numbers of anti-atoms to make detailed investigations into the properties of antimatter. By 2003 they were able to make several thousand a day.

High energy cosmic rays striking atoms at the top of the atmosphere give the rise to showers of particles striking the Earth's surface

(left) Medical diagnostic imaging using a Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanner. PET scans are carried out to measure the flow of blood to active areas off the body, such as the brain and heart

more
If you would like to know more about antimatter, try the following resources: World Wide Web sites A first stop for particle physics in the UK http://hepweb.rl.ac.uk/ppUK/ CERN and its work http://www.cern.ch/public CERNs cool antimatter site http://livefromcern.web.cern.ch/ livefromcern/antimatter/ Introduction to particle physics http://www/schoolscience.co.uk (see World of Particles) An Introduction to antimatter http://livefromcern.web.cern.ch/ livefromcern/antimatter/ Making antihydrogen http://athena.web.cern.ch/athena/ Investigating Antimatter http://hepwww.rl.ac.uk/BaBarpub/ and http://lhcb-public.web.cern.ch/lhcbpublic/default.html Books Frank Close Lucifers Legacy The Meaning of Asymmetry Oxford University Press 2000 Gordon Fraser Antimatter, the Ultimate Mirror Cambridge University Press 2000 Close, Sutton and Marten The Particle Odyssey Oxford University Press 2002 Jonathan Allday Quarks, Leptons and the Big Bang Institute of Physics Publishing 2002 Frank Close Lucifers Legacy Oxford University Press 1999 PPARC also publishes information on a variety of topics related to physics and astronomy, to help increase public awareness of the UKs achievements in science and technology. Find out more by visiting the PPARC World Wide Web site: http://www.pparc.ac.uk
04/04

Antimatter
Matters hidden shadow

Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council

The Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC) is the UK Government strategic science investment agency for research in: Particle Physics Astronomy Space Science PPARC is government funded and provides research grants and studentships to scientists in British universities, gives researchers access to world-class facilities and funds the UK membership of international bodies such as the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, CERN, the European Space Agency and the European Southern Observatory. It also contributes money for the UK telescopes overseas on La Palma, Hawaii, Australia and in Chile, the UK Astronomy Technology Centre at the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh and the MERLIN/VLBI National Facility. PPARC recognises the importance of its science in assisting wealth creation; in post-graduate training; and in motivating young people towards an interest and career in science generally. Front cover: A PET scan showing a physicists brain interacting with antimatter!

(right) Pairs of detectors (one pair highlighted) on opposite sides of the head detect gamma rays when positrons from radioactive sugar injected into the patient meet electrons in the brain. A computer can display the paths of the gamma rays as lines drawn between the detectors

Paths of gamma rays

Using antimatter in medicine

Antimatter in the form of positrons is regularly used in medicine to see inside peoples bodies, particularly in studies of the brain. Patients are injected with a small quantity of radioactive fluid, which is absorbed by the part of the body of interest. Glucose containing a radioactive form of carbon, for example, will go to the active areas of the brain, because glucose is the brains fuel. An image (see left) is then built up during the following steps: 1. An unstable atom in the fluid decays, emitting a positron

Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council Polaris House North Star Avenue Swindon Wiltshire SN2 1SZ Tel: +44 (0) 1793 442000 Fax: +44 (0) 1793 442002 Email: pr.pus@pparc.ac.uk
Acknowledgements: Photos supplied by: MRC/Adrian McKemey, Brunel University,The Dean and Chapter of Westminster, Science Photo Library, California Institute of Technology, Frank Spooner Pictures and CERN Design and production by Holly Benson Communications, August 2004.

(left) PET scan of left side of the brain. As more positrons and electrons annihilate to produce gamma rays, more lines (not shown) can be drawn. Where the lines cross is the location of the radioactive sugar, creating an image of its site in the brain. The red/yellow areas show the parts of the brain that are most active during thinking and speaking
Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council

2. The positron immediately meets an electron in an atom of the body 3. The electron and positron annihilate, producing two gamma rays 4. The gamma rays fly off in opposite directions... 5. ... and are recorded by two detectors outside the body (background) A cloud chamber reveals the spiral track of an electron generated together with a positron by a gamma ray.

matter
meets
Most scientists think that the Universe began about 10 thousand million years ago with a huge explosion called the Big Bang. All matter in the Universe at the present time must have originated from the very high energy that existed then.The CERN laboratory has investigated the relationship between matter and energy in conditions similar to the very early Universe.The Large Electron Positron Collider (LEP), now closed after a hugely successful 11 year run, used magnetic fields to steer energy in opposite directions round a ring 27km in circumference.The electrons and positrons were accelerated almost to the speed of light by electric fields, and then made to meet head on.The particles and antiparticles collided and annihilated to produce small but intense bursts of energy, reproducing the conditions in the first fractions of a second after the Big Bang. The problem with antimatter Experiments using machines such as LEP show that conversions of energy to matter always produce equal amounts of matter and antimatter distributed randomly. However, if the energy of the early Universe had produced equal amounts of matter and antimatter they would by now have annihilated each other, and we would not exist! Instead, all the evidence suggests that the known Universe consists almost entirely of matter. So how did the Universe lose its antimatter? A detector called AMS, for Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, on board the International Space Station, has been designed to search for antimatter in space. One possibility that AMS will explore is that all the antimatter formed galaxies beyond the galaxies of matter detected so far. A subtle difference In 1967 the Russian physicist Andrei Sakharov showed that there was another way to explain the missing antimatter. He proposed that a subtle difference between matter and antimatter could make antiparticles decay faster than particles.This would mean that in the very early Universe some of the antiparticles would have disappeared before they could

annihilate with particles, and this would have led to a small but significant excess of particles, and ultimately of matter. A small difference like this could arise if the laws of physics, which govern the Universe, are not exactly symmetric. Most laws of physics are symmetric, which means that a mirror world with particles swapped for antiparticles would seem no different from our own.This kind of symmetry goes by the name of CP symmetry. But the difference between matter and antimatter that Sakharov first described would require that CP symmetry is not perfect. In other words, there must be processes that break the symmetry, or cause CP violation. Physicists first found that this small breakdown in symmetry between particles and antiparticles does indeed occur with short-lived kaons. Antimatter and the six quarks All matter on Earth contains protons and neutrons, which in turn contain two types of more fundamental particle the up quark and the down quark. However, during the past 25 years four more quarks have been discovered.These additional quarks, called strange, charm, bottom and top, appear to have no role in ordinary matter.They exist only in the high-energy conditions produced in cosmic ray collisions and inside particle accelerators. However, theorists have found that CP violation can occur only if there are six quarks and no fewer.This may be the solution to the mystery of why there are more quarks than the up and down ones needed to make ordinary matter. Experiments with B particles The effect of CP violation, in socalled B particles, which contain a bottom quark, was measured for the first time in 1999. The puzzle of the missing antimatter is so important that physicists from throughout the world are working on experiments in different countries to look for CP violation in B particles and their antiparticles (B-bar). Physicists from the UK are involved in two of these, called BaBar and LHCb.

antimatter
The Large Detector at the Stanford Linear Collider (SLC) in California, during construction in 1988. The SLC was constructed to investigate high-energy collisions between electrons and positrons Artists impression of the Large Hadron Collider as it will look inside the existing LEP tunnel at CERN. This accelerator will study B particles, starting in 2007, using the LHCb experiment

The 3.2km-long Stanford Linear Accelerator supplies electrons and positrons to the PEPII accelerator. PEPII is the home of the BaBar experiment, which gets its name from the symbol B-bar. BaBar studies B and B-bar particles produced when high-energy electrons and positrons annihilate, and energy turns back into matter

View of the 110-metre long vacuum chamber of the NA48 experiment at CERN. This experiment was used to investigate the decay of particles called kaons into others called pions. These studies helped to clarify the mystery of CP violation

The BaBar experiment is investigating the mystery of CP violation. Here are some of the UK physicists in the team celebrating the completion of the detector, seen attached to the right of the blue frame in the background

The Russian physicist Andrei Sakharov worked out the conditions in the early Universe that gave rise to the apparent dominance of matter over antimatter

(Background) The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) has had its first journey into space on the space shuttle Discovery. AMS will be one of the may scientific instruments on board the International Space Station (artistss impression)