Researchers are preparing to undertake one of the most unusual scientific journeys. They plan to transport a container of antimatter in a truck across Europe.
Antimatter is the most expensive material on Earth – it is estimated that it would cost several billion dollars to make a gram of it – and it can only be made in particle physics laboratories like the Cern research center near Geneva.
It’s also extremely tricky to manage. If antimatter comes into contact with normal matter, both are annihilated, releasing a powerful burst of electromagnetic radiation. Only by carefully combining sets of powerful electric and magnetic fields in special devices can antimatter be stored safely.
“This makes travel very difficult, even though we are now about to make our first trip,” said Professor Stefan Ulmer, a scientist at CERN. “Antimatter has so much to tell us. That’s why we do this.
Moving antimatter will be a scientific first, even if there is a fictional precursor. In Dan Brown’s thriller Angels & Demons – transformed into a film with Tom Hanks in 2009 – terrorists steal an antimatter canister from CERN and attempt to destroy the Vatican with it.
The prospect of a similar explosion occurring in real life is remote, scientists insist: the quantities of antimatter carried will be insufficient to cause an explosion of any recognizable nature.
Scientists want to study these particles because they believe they could hold the solution to a fundamental mystery. “We think the Big Bang produced the same amounts of matter and antimatter,” Ulmer said. “These should have annihilated each other, leaving a universe made up of electromagnetic radiation and not much else.”
The fact that the cosmos appears to be filled with galaxies, stars, planets, and living things made of matter shows that this notion must be false. There is a fundamental asymmetry that favored matter and prevented the universe from becoming a seething, empty void.
This is why physicists want to study the differences between the particles that make up matter and antimatter. These could provide clues as to why the former came to dominate the universe.
As CERN scientist Barbara Maria Latacz said Nature: “We are trying to understand why we exist.”
Matter is made up of subatomic particles such as protons and electrons, while antimatter is made up of particles including antiprotons and positrons (as antielectrons are also called). A key source of the latter type of particle is at Cern in a device known as the antiproton decelerator, where antiprotons are generated, collected and studied.
The objective is to precisely measure the properties of antiprotons and compare them to those of protons. Known as the Baseline experiment, this experiment could reveal tiny, hidden differences that explain why matter thrived at the expense of antimatter.
Background magnetic fields near the device limit this work, and scientists want to transport samples to other laboratories. “By moving them to a new location, we can make 100 times more precise measurements and better understand antiprotons,” Ulmer said.
To achieve this goal, Cern scientists have built transportable devices containing superconducting magnets, cryogenic cooling systems and vacuum chambers where antiprotons can be trapped, avoiding contact with normal matter, and transported on transport trucks. seven tons.
Initially, the antiprotons will be transported within CERN. Over the next year, the containers will be moved further afield to a dedicated precision laboratory at the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf.
“Ultimately, we want to transport it to any laboratory in Europe,” said Christian Smorra, transport project manager. In this way, scientists hope to discover why antimatter has practically disappeared from the universe. “This could be a game changer,” Ulmer said.