Antimatter creation now feasible in the laboratory

Physicists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have developed a new technique to generate beams of antimatter particles. Using a gold sample the size of the head of a thumb tack, a laser is shot through it producing more than 100 billion positrons per pulse emitted in a cone-shaped plasma “jet.”

This ability to create a large number of positrons in a small laboratory opens the door to several fresh avenues of anti-matter research, including an understanding of the physics underlying various astrophysical phenomena such as black holes and gamma ray bursts.

In the experiment, the laser ionises and accelerates electrons, which are driven through the gold target. On their way, the electrons interact with the gold nuclei, which serve as a catalyst to create positrons. The electrons give off packets of pure energy, which decays into matter and anti-matter, following the predictions by Einstein’s mass-energy equation. By concentrating the energy in space and time, the laser produces positrons more rapidly and in greater density than ever before in the laboratory.

See Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory PR.