Flipping particle could explain missing antimatter

Flipping particle could explain missing antimatter

www.newscientist.com

IT IS one the biggest mysteries in physics - where did all the antimatter go? Now a team of physicists claims to have found the first ever hint of an answer in experimental data. The findings could signal a major crack in the standard model, the theoretical edifice that describes nature's fundamental particles and forces.

In its early days, the cosmos was a cauldron of radiation and equal amounts of matter and antimatter. As it cooled, all the antimatter annihilated in collisions with matter - but for some reason the proportions ended up lopsided, leaving some of the matter intact.
Particle physicists have long thought that they might find such evidence in a particle called the Bs meson, which comprises a bottom antiquark bound to a strange quark. The Bs is one of a handful of mesons that transforms into its own antiparticle and back again 3 trillion times per second before decaying into other particles (see Diagram). These oscillations between matter and antimatter make it a good place to look for evidence that CP violation goes beyond the standard model.

At the Tevatron particle accelerator at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, two groups of scientists running the rival CDF and D-Zero experiments have been studying several properties of Bs mesons and their oscillations by picking through the debris created when protons and antiprotons collide. While each experiment on its own has found faint hints of CP violation above and beyond the standard model, the experimental uncertainties have been too large to make a definitive claim, says Giovanni Punzi, a physicist at the University of Pisa in Italy and one of the leaders of the B meson physics group at CDF.

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Does anyone really understand antimatter?

Two scientific teams have found evidence of CP violation and flipping particles. Ie. particles flipping back and forth rapidly between matter and antimatter, as many as 3 trillion times a second. By combining the results of the 2 teams they have calculated that this flipping occurs much more commonly than was predicted in the standard model and that this may explain the apparent disparity in the mass of the universe. It is oscilating between something we can see and something we cannot.

The real proof of this phenomenon may come when they switch on the Lage Hadron Collider at Cern, SW later this year.

www.newscientist.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I can't help but think that one day with these expeiriments they are going to screw up big time!
Like during the a-bomb test they were worried about igniteing the atmosphere.
I know we have to advance science.
But some of these subjects are so cutting edge.
Kind of makes me nervous.

reply to post by TimeTracker

Hi tracker,
Safety issues have always been an issue with these super colliders. Wiki says this:

scientists reached such conclusions as "beyond reasonable doubt, heavy-ion experiments at RHIC will not endanger our planet"[18] and that there is "powerful empirical evidence against the possibility of dangerous strangelet production."

Here is the Wiki article about Large Hadron Colliders .

Particle colliding has been a favored analytical tool for particle physisists for some time now. I worry more about the hazzards of going to and from the shopping mall!

Definitely one subject to watch. I'm starring and flagging this one. I don't see the atmosphere burning up, but I think I can see quantum computer technology coming a long way from this work!!

plumranch,

I'm going to have to move this thread to the Science forums, because it will be responded to better over there. Besides, this forum is dedicated to the alternative breaking news that has a conspiracy twist to it. This one, in my humble opinion though, is one of the best stories I've read all day.

THANK YOU!!!

TheBorg
Forum Moderator

[Edited for added material.]

[edit on 19-3-2008 by TheBorg]

Interesting stuff.
I wonder what they decay into? Dark matter?

reply to post by cruzion

Hi cruzion,
Dark matter is the stuff (comprizing 95%) in the universe that we cannot see but assume is there.

These oscillations between matter and antimatter make it a good place to look for evidence that CP violation goes beyond the standard model.

So this particle, the B meson is going from matter to antimatter (which cannot be seen). Therefore this activity may contribute to CP violation and may be a large factor leading to the fact that we do not see 95% of the mass. So this antimatter may be the dark matter we do not see.

So I believe you are right!

Just think one of the side effects of these experiments might be the fact that one day we may be able to see anti-matter.
That'll reveal some strange things indeed!
Could anti-matter be considered part of a different dimension?

reply to post by TimeTracker

Could anti-matter be considered part of a different dimension?

Hi Tracker,

You may have stumbled into the greatest mystery of particle physics. What is occuring below the levels of our understanding regarding particles, vibrations and energy. This antimatter or the 95% that we don't see may be holding together what we do see, ie. maintaining the structure and fabric of the universe and even the spinning electron around the atom's nucleas.

If we ever tap into this other dimension there may be an infinite supply of energy and the way to the stars!

You guys are getting anti-matter and dark matter mixed up. Anti-matter and regular matter are annihilated if they touch, but dark matter only interacts through gravity (or so we think).

You guys are getting anti-matter and dark matter mixed up.

reply to post by lonemaverick


Hi lonemaverick,

I refer to dark matter as the stuff we do not see but that has mass in the universe. See: Is dark matter mystery about to be solved? which is another article in New Scientist referring to dark matter.

If you want to further persue the relations between the production of electrogravity and dark energy and dark matter see chapter 3 of GLs work "Alien Primer": When the Cosmic-scale Meets the Micro-scale where he gets into a very technical discussion that I highly recommend and that will "simply amaze" you to put it lightly!

GL's E book is in Eyepod but will not come up from the directory. I have to do a search of Eyepod to bring it up.

edit to clarify... I think the article I refer to in my OP is postulating that this antimatter flipping may be contributing to the mass of dark matter. Kind of a hard thing to wrap your mind around, I agree!

[edit on 21/3/08 by plumranch]

I still don't get it. The article is talking about why the universe is nearly devoid of anti-matter, when according to the current models there should be no matter because anti-matter and matter should have been created in equal amounts and then promptly annihilated each other. Are you suggesting that this flipping between states of matter and antimatter is the actual cause of dark matter?

reply to post by lonemaverick

The article says:

Physicists think the explanation for this lies with the weak nuclear force, which differs from the other fundamental forces in that it does not act equally on matter and antimatter (allowing for the 5% matter/ 95% antimatter or dark matter). This asymmetry, called CP violation, could have allowed the matter to survive to form the elements, stars and galaxies we see today.

So yes, they are implying that this newly discovered higher rate of Bs meson flipping to antimatter helps explain the disparity between matter and dark matter. As I mentioned previously both antimatter and dark matter are invisible but yet have mass so they may well be one and the same. Antimatter = dark matter.

No, antimatter is NOT dark matter. Dark matter interacts ONLY through gravity. We can't see it. Anti-matter CAN be seen, and it interacts with regular matter. When anti-matter and matter come into contact, gamma rays with energies equal to the mass of the two particles are produced and the particles vanish.

reply to post by lonemaverick

Quote from exterior sorce:
Could the Dark Matter be Antimatter?

It is conceivable that the dark matter (or at least part of it) could be antimatter, but there are very strong experimental reasons to doubt this. For example, if the dark matter out there were antimatter, we would expect it to annihilate with matter whenever it meets up with it, releasing bursts of energy primarily in the form of light. We see no evidence in careful observations for that, which leads most scientists to believe that whatever the dark matter is, it is not antimatter.

Hi Maverick,
You said:
No, antimatter is NOT dark matter. Dark matter interacts ONLY through gravity. We can't see it. Anti-matter CAN be seen, and it interacts with regular matter.

I think that the researchers in this article suspect that antimatter is contributing to dark matter and that they are looking for something to explain the preponderance of dark matter. I interpret what they are saying is that there apparently is possibly a way (based on research on the Bs meson) that matter and antimatter can coexist. I also wonder if antimatter can be seen. I know that they have postulated the existance of antimatter stars (even antimatter galaxies) but none have been identified to date.

There is a 2006 probe, Pamela, that may be at work on this now: Antimatter and dark matter are new probe's prey

reply to post by plumranch

That's an interesting article...thanks

I'm not a physicist, but in my mind I always imagined that the universe sometime soon after the big bang had much much more mass than it has today, but it was made up of 49.999999...999% antimatter and 50.000000...001% regular matter.

These two annihilated each other until all the antimatter was gone and only that small percentage difference of regular matter remained -- and that small amount of leftover regular matter is what now makes up our universe.

However, the flipping particle theory sounds good, too.

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People

Hi Green,
Interesting thought!

If in fact there was a big bang when matter and antimatter combined (and in the end matter survived) where did all that energy go? According to the usual conservation of energy laws it went or turned into something. There was a lot of light and gamma rays released in the Bang!

I wonder also if matter and antimatter attract and thus seek out and anhilate each other? If they repell each other as do like poles of a magnet then they can coexist unless forced together. So the question is what attraction forces exist between the various forms of antimatter/matter?

Antimatter is the same as regular matter except it has the opposite charge. Electrons are negatively charge, positrons (antiprotons) are positively charged. And the gamma rays didn't disappear, it's still there, part of the cosmic microwave background radiation. Anyways, the reason that they are so concerned about this is because according to our current theories, exactly equal amounts of matter and antimatter should have been formed after the big bang. So basically, this means there is an error in our understanding of either a), the big bang, or b) the way the forces act on antimatter.

Here is a short discussion on how antimatter may coexist in our universe with regular matter.

The observations of the spiral galaxies similar to ours showed that the central part of the galaxy with the radius of 10 thousand light years rotates around the galactic axis like a quasi-solid body. This quasi-solid body behaves as if it "obeyed" the kinematic equation of the solid body rotation, and did not "respect" Kepler's laws of the material bodies rotation round the gravitation centre, as it is in our solar system. The behaviour of the central part of the galaxy evokes the impression that this star system is "reinforced by invisible bars" and forms a quasi-solid complex. What in the universe can create such a state among star objects?

And for a pretty good (or should I say bad?) discussion of various aspects of the antimatter/matter relationship read:
Bad Astronomy discussion on antimatter

It seems there are a lot of scientists who think there should be a lot of antimatter around somewhere. The only problem is the Standard Model of physics which says it can't!