Physicists have successfully transported antimatter by truck for the first time. This is a milestone that allows researchers to study elusive matter with unprecedented precision and may ultimately help explain how matter came to dominate the universe.
A short, tightly controlled movement around the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) campus in Geneva demonstrated that antimatter, the most fragile substance known to science, can be transported without being destroyed. This capability allows scientists to transport antimatter to quiet labs across Europe, where they can perform ultra-sensitive experiments that are less susceptible to interference than CERN.
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What happened to antimatter?
According to current theory, the Big Bang should have produced equal amounts of matter and antimatter. If that were the case, the two would completely destroy each other, leaving behind a dark and empty universe. Rather, the observable universe is, inexplicably, overwhelmingly made of matter, and physicists believe that measurable differences between matter and antimatter may provide important clues to solving the mystery.
For decades, CERN has been producing antimatter through collisions of high-energy particles in its “antimatter factory.” But the same powerful equipment used to generate particles also produces small magnetic fluctuations that can disrupt the very precise measurements scientists are trying to make. It might be helpful to move antimatter to a more stable environment, but transporting it is notoriously difficult.
When antimatter comes into contact with normal matter, both are instantly destroyed in a burst of energy. To prevent that, scientists use carefully calibrated electric and magnetic fields to trap antimatter particles in a near-perfect vacuum. This condition is difficult to maintain even in a stationary laboratory, let alone in a moving vehicle.
To test whether transport was possible, Ulmer and his team loaded 92 antiprotons, the antimatter equivalent of protons, into a portable trap and drove it about five miles (8 kilometers) around the CERN campus.
Inside the device, the particles were suspended in a near-perfect vacuum and held in place by electric and magnetic fields, preventing them from touching the walls of the container. According to a statement from CERN, the research team monitored the particles throughout the trip and reported that they remained stable despite road vibrations and movement.
Even in the worst-case scenario, this experiment had little risk. The amount of antimatter involved would have been extremely small, and the energy released by its annihilation would have been negligible. According to CERN, even all the antimatter ever produced at this facility would only produce enough energy to power a single light bulb for just a few minutes.
Beyond the standard model
While the success of the experiment won’t immediately change the way antimatter is studied, it does demonstrate that transporting antimatter is technically feasible. This opens the possibility of moving the antiprotons to quiet labs across Europe, such as Germany’s Heinrich-Heine University of Düsseldorf, about an eight-hour drive from CERN, where more precise measurements could be made in quiet environments.
Such measurements could help scientists detect the subtlest differences between matter and antimatter. If these differences exist, they could point to why matter came to dominate the universe, provide clues to physics beyond the Standard Model, and ultimately explain why everything from stars to planets to humans exists.
“We are at the beginning of an exciting scientific journey that can further deepen our understanding of antimatter,” Gautier Hamel de Montcheneau, CERN’s director of research and computing, said in a statement.
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