An international team of physicists from Brookhaven National Laboratory in the United States has discovered the heaviest antimatter nucleus ever found in particle accelerators. The study was published in the scientific journal magazine Nature.
Physicists have discovered traces of antimatter among the particle tracks from 6 billion collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC).
The team named the new particle antihyperhydrogen-4. It consists of an antiproton, two antineutrons and an antihyperon (a baryon containing a strange quark).
Scientists hope that studying the unusual particle will reveal some fundamental differences between matter and antimatter, which would help explain why the universe is made of antimatter, even though antimatter was created in equal amounts at the beginning of time.
“Our physical knowledge of matter and antimatter is that, except for the presence of opposite electric charges, antimatter has the same properties as matter, the same mass, the same lifetime before decay, and the same interactions.
“Why matter dominates our universe is still a question, and we don’t know the full answer,” said Junlin Wu, co-author of the study and a graduate student at the Institute of Modern Physics in China.
The researchers found that both hyperhydrogen-4 and its antimatter counterpart, antihyperhydrogen-4, annihilate very quickly.
The next step for scientists will be to compare the masses of antiparticles and their counterparts (particles), which they hope could provide some clues about how our matter-rich Universe came into being.
Scientists have previously discovered for the first time was created Cosmic antimatter plasma in a laboratory on Earth.
What are you thinking?
Source: Gazeta
Barbara Dickson is a seasoned writer for “Social Bites”. She keeps readers informed on the latest news and trends, providing in-depth coverage and analysis on a variety of topics.