The Most Precise Measurement of Antimatter Yet Deepens

the Mystery of Why We Exist

By Aylin Woodward, Live Science Contributor | April 4, 2018

One of the biggest questions that keep physicists up at night is why

there is more matter than antimatter in the universe.

Scientists have made the most precise measurement of antimatter yet,

and the results only deepen the mystery of why life, the universe, and
everything in it exists.

The new measurements show that, to an incredibly high degree of

precision, antimatter and matter behave identically.

Yet those new measurements can't answer one of the biggest questions in physics: Why, if
equal parts matter and antimatter were formed during the Big Bang, is our universe today
made up of matter?

Universe in balance
Our universe is predicated on the balance of opposites. For every type
of "normal" particle, made of matter, there is a conjugate antiparticle
of the same mass that has the opposite electric charge produced at the
same time. Electrons have opposing antielectrons, or positrons;
protons have antiprotons; and so on. [The 18 Biggest Unsolved
Mysteries in Physics]
When matter and antimatter particles meet, however, they annihilate
each other, leaving only leftover energy behind. Physicists posit that
there should have been equal amounts of matter and antimatter
created by the Big Bang, and each would have ensured the other's
mutual destruction, leaving a baby universe bereft of life's building
blocks (or anything, really). Yet here we are, in a universe made up
almost wholly of matter.

But here's the kicker: We don't know of any primordial antimatter that
made it out of the Big Bang. So why — if antimatter and matter behave
the same way — did one type of matter survive the Big Bang and the
other did not?

One of the best ways to answer that question is to measure the

fundamental properties of matter and its antimatter conjugates as
precisely as possible and compare those results, said Stefan Ulmer, a
physicist at Riken in Wako, Japan, who was not involved in the new
research. If there's a slight deviation between matter properties and
correlated antimatter properties, that could be the first clue to solving
physics' biggest whodunit. (In 2017, scientists found some
slight differences in the way some matter antimatter partners behave,
but the results weren't statistically strong enough to count as a
discovery.)
But if scientists want to manipulate antimatter, they have to
painstakingly make it. In recent years, some physicists have taken to
studying antihydrogen, or hydrogen's antimatter counterpart, because
hydrogen is "oneof the things we understand best in the universe,"
study co-author Jeffrey Hangst, a physicist at Aarhus University in
Denmark, told Live Science. Making antihydrogen typically involves
mixing 90,000 antiprotons with 3 million positrons to produce 50,000
antihydrogen atoms, only 20 of which are caught with magnets in an
11-inch-long (28 centimeters) cylindrical tube for further study.
Now, in a new study published today (April 4) in the journal Nature,
Hangst's team has achieved an unprecedented standard: They've
taken the most precise measurement of antihydrogen — or any type of
antimatter at all — to date. In 15,000 atoms of antihydrogen (think
doing that aforementioned mixing process some 750 times), they
studied the frequency of light the atoms emit or absorb when they
jump from a lower energy state to a higher one. [Beyond Higgs: 5
Elusive Particles That May Lurk in the Universe]

The researchers' measurements showed that antihydrogen atoms'

energy levels, and the amount of light absorbed, agreed with their
hydrogen counterparts, with a precision of 2 parts per trillion,
dramatically improving upon the previous measurement precision on
the order of parts per billion.

"It's very rare that experimentalists manage to increase precision by

factor of 100," Ulmer told Live Science. He thinks that, if Hangst's team
continues the work for an additional 10 to 20 years, they will be able to
increase their level of hydrogen spectroscopy precision by a further
factor of 1,000.

For Hangst — the spokesperson for the ALPHA collaboration at the

European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), which produced
these results — this achievement was decades in the making.

Trapping and holding antimatter was a major feat, Hangst said.

"Twenty years ago, people thought this would never happen," he said.
"It's an experimental tour de force to be able to do this at all."

The new results are very impressive, Michael Doser, a physicist at

CERN who was not involved in the work, told Live Science in an email.
"The number of trapped atoms for this measurement (15,000) is a
huge improvement on [Hangst's group's] own records of only a few
years ago," Doser said.

So what does the most precise measurement of antimatter even tell

us? Well, unfortunately, not much more than we already knew. As
expected, hydrogen and antihydrogen — matter and antimatter —
behave identically. Now, we just know that they're identical at a
measurement of parts per trillion. However, Ulmer said the 2-parts-per-
trillion measurement does not rule out the possibility that something is
deviating between the two types of matter at an even greater level of
precision that has thus far defied measurement.

As for Hangst, he's less concerned with answering the question of why
our universe of matter exists as it does without antimatter — what he
calls "the elephant in the room." Instead, he and his group want to
focus on making even more precise measurements, and exploring how
antimatter reacts with gravity — does it fall down like normal matter,
or could it fall up?

And Hangst thinks that mystery could be solved before the end of
2018, when CERN will shut down for two years for upgrades. "We have
other tricks up our sleeve," he said. "Stay tuned."

A 2nd 'Big Bang' could end our universe in an instant —

and it's all because of a tiny particle that controls
the laws of physics

 A group of Harvard physicists found that our

universe is likely to end the way it began: with a Big
Bang.

 The second Big Bang could be because of a change in

the Higgs boson particle's mass that would consume
everything in the universe and upend the laws of
physics.
 The researchers think our universe could end in
approximately 10 million trillion trillion trillion
 trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion
trillion years.

Our universe may end the same way it was created: with a big,
sudden bang.
That's according to new research from a group of Harvard
physicists, who found that the destabilization of the Higgs boson —
a tiny quantum particle that gives other particles mass — could lead
to an explosion of energy that would consume everything in the
known universe and upend the laws of physics and chemistry.
As part of their study, published last month in the journal Physical
Review D, the researchers calculated when our universe could end.
It's nothing to worry about just yet. They settled on a date
10 139 years from now, or 10 million trillion trillion trillion trillion
trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion years in the
future.
And they're at least 95% sure — a statistical measure of certainty —
that the universe will last at least another 10 58 years.
The Higgs boson, discovered in 2012 by researchers smashing
subatomic protons together at the Large Hadron Collider, has a
specific mass. If the researchers are correct, that mass could
change, turning physics on its head and tearing apart the elements
that make life possible, according to the New York Post.
And rather than burning slowly over trillions of years, an unstable
Higgs boson could create an instantaneous bang, like the Big Bang
that created our universe.
The researchers say a collapse could be driven by the curvature of
space-time around a black hole, somewhere deep in the universe.
When space-time curves around super-dense objects, like a black
hole, it throws the laws of physics out of whack and causes particles
to interact in all sorts of strange ways.
The researchers say the collapse may have already begun — but we
have no way of knowing, as the Higgs boson particle may be far
away from where we can analyze it, within our seemingly infinite
universe.
"It turns out we're right on the edge between a stable universe and
an unstable universe," Joseph Lykken, a physicist from the Fermi
National Accelerator Laboratory who was not involved in the study,
told the Post.
He added: "We're sort of right on the edge where the universe can
last for a long time, but eventually, it should go 'boom.'"

Physicists zoom in on mysterious 'missing'

antimatter

Paris (AFP) - When the Universe arose some 13.7 billion years
ago, the Big Bang generated matter and antimatter particles in
mirroring pairs. So the reigning physics theory goes.

Yet everything we can see in the Cosmos today, from the smallest
insect on Earth to the largest star, is made of matter particles
whose antimatter twins are nowhere to be found.

On Wednesday, physicists at Europe's massive underground

particle lab said they have taken a step closer to solving the
mystery through unprecedented observation of an antimatter
particle they forged in the lab -- an atom of "antihydrogen".

"What we're looking for is (to see) if hydrogen in matter and

antihydrogen in antimatter behave in the same way," said Jeffrey
Hangst of the ALPHA experiment at the European Organisation for
Nuclear Research (CERN).

Finding even the slightest difference may help explain the

apparent matter-antimatter disparity and would rock the
Standard Model of physics -- the mainstream theory of the
fundamental particles that make up the Universe and the forces
that govern them.
But, somewhat disappointingly, the latest, "most precise test to
date", has found no difference between the behaviour of a
hydrogen atom and that of an antihydrogen one. Not yet.

"So far, they look the same," Hangst said in a video prepared by
CERN.

The Standard Model, which describes the makeup and behaviour

of the visible Universe, has no explanation for "missing
"antimatter.

It is widely assumed that the Big Bang generated pairs of matter-

antimatter particles with the same mass but an opposite electric
charge.

Trouble is, as soon as these particles meet, they annihilate one

another, leaving behind nothing but pure energy -- the principle
that powers imaginary spaceships in "Star Trek".

- Within reach? -

Physicists believe matter and antimatter did meet and implode

shortly after the Big Bang, which means the Universe today
should contain nothing but leftover energy.

Yet, scientists say that matter, which makes up everything we

can touch and see, comprises 4.9 percent of the Universe.

Dark matter -- a mysterious substance perceived through its

gravitational pull on other objects -- makes up 26.8 percent of the
Cosmos, and dark energy the remaining 68.3 percent.

Antimatter, for all intents and purposes, does not exist, except for
rare and short-lived particles created in very high-energy events
such as cosmic rays, or produced at CERN.

Some theoretical physicists believe the "missing" antimatter may

be found in hitherto unknown regions of the Universe -- in anti-
galaxies comprised of anti-stars and anti-planets.

At ALPHA, physicists are trying to unravel the mystery using

simplest atom of matter -- hydrogen. It has a single electron
orbiting a single proton.
The team creates hydrogen mirror particles by taking antiprotons
left over from the CERN's high-energy particle collisions and
binding them with positrons (the twins of electrons).

The resulting antihydrogen atoms are held in a magnetic trap to

prevent them from coming into contact with matter and self-
annihilating.

The team then studies the atoms' reaction to laser light.

Atoms from different types of matter absorb different frequencies

of light, and under the prevailing theory, hydrogen and
antihydrogen should absorb the same type.

So far, it seems they do.

But the team will hope for differences to emerge as the

experiment is fine-tuned.

"Although the precision still falls short for that of ordinary

hydrogen, the rapid progress made by ALPHA suggests hydrogen-
like precision in antihydrogen (measurements)... are now within
reach," said Hangst.