What is antimatter?

• Matter contains particles (electrons,

protons etc).
• Antimatter contains antiparticles
(antielectrons, antiprotons etc).
• An antielectron (also called "positron") and an
antiproton could form an antihydrogen atom
in the same way that an electron and a proton
form a normal matter hydrogen atom.
• The modern theory of
antimatter begins in 1928, with
a paper by Paul Dirac.
• Dirac realized his version of the
Schrödinger wave equation for
electrons was predicting the
possibility of antielectrons.
• These antielectrons were
discovered by Carl D. Anderson
in 1932 and named positrons.
 Annihilation

•Annihilation is the process that occurs when a

subatomic particle collides with its respective
antiparticle.
•Ex . Positron + electron = energy
• A Feynman diagram of a positron and an
electron annihilating into a photon (gamma
rays).
 Storage
• Antimatter cannot be stored in a container
made of ordinary matter because antimatter
reacts with any matter it touches, annihilating
itself and an equal amount of the container.
• Antimatter that is composed of charged
particles can be contained by a combination of
an electric field and a magnetic field in a
device known as a Penning trap.
Penning trap
 Uses

Antimatter-matter reactions have

practical applications in medical imaging, such
as positron emission tomography (PET).
 Uses

• Fuel : The reaction of 1 kg

of antimatter with 1 kg of
matter would produce
1.8×1017 J (180 petajoules)
of energy or the rough
equivalent of 43 megatons
of TNT !!!
 Disadvantages
• Cost : To produce 1 gram of antimatter, CERN
would need to spend 100 quadrillion dollars and
run the antimatter factory for 100 billion years.
• One researcher of the CERN laboratories,
which produces antimatter regularly, said: