Theoretical Breakthrough: Generating Matter and Antimatter from Nothing
85 replies, posted
[Quote] Under just the right conditions -- which involve an ultra-high-intensity laser beam and a two-mile-long particle accelerator -- it could be possible to create something out of nothing, according to University of Michigan researchers.
The scientists and engineers have developed new equations that show how a high-energy electron beam combined with an intense laser pulse could rip apart a vacuum into its fundamental matter and antimatter components, and set off a cascade of events that generates additional pairs of particles and antiparticles.
"We can now calculate how, from a single electron, several hundred particles can be produced. We believe this happens in nature near pulsars and neutron stars," said Igor Sokolov, an engineering research scientist who conducted this research along with associate research scientist John Nees, emeritus electrical engineering professor Gerard Mourou and their colleagues in France.
At the heart of this work is the idea that a vacuum is not exactly nothing.
"It is better to say, following theoretical physicist Paul Dirac, that a vacuum, or nothing, is the combination of matter and antimatter -- particles and antiparticles.Their density is tremendous, but we cannot perceive any of them because their observable effects entirely cancel each other out," Sokolov said.
Matter and antimatter destroy each other when they come into contact under normal conditions.
"But in a strong electromagnetic field, this annihilation, which is typically a sink mechanism, can be the source of new particles," Nees said, "In the course of the annihilation, gamma photons appear, which can produce additional electrons and positrons."
A gamma photon is a high-energy particle of light. A positron is an anti-electron, a mirror-image particle with the same properties as an electron, but an opposite, positive charge.
The researchers describe this work as a theoretical breakthrough, and a "qualitative jump in theory."
An experiment in the late '90s managed to generate from a vacuum gamma photons and an occasional electron-positron pair. These new equations take this work a step farther to model how a strong laser field could promote the creation of more particles than were initially injected into an experiment through a particle accelerator.
"If the electron has a capability to become three particles within a very short time, this means it's not an electron any longer," Sokolov said. "The theory of the electron is based on the fact that it will be an electron forever. But in our calculations, each of the charged particles becomes a combination of three particles plus some number of photons."
The researchers have developed a tool to put their equations into practice in the future on a very small scale using the HERCULES laser at U-M. To test their theory's full potential, a HERCULES-type laser would have to be built at a particle accelerator such as the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford University. Such infrastructure is not currently planned.
This work could potentially have applications in inertial confinement fusion, which could produce cleaner energy from nuclear fusion reactions, the researchers say.
To Sokolov, it's fascinating from a philosophical perspective.
"The basic question what is a vacuum, and what is nothing, goes beyond science," he said. "It's embedded deeply in the base not only of theoretical physics, but of our philosophical perception of everything -- of reality, of life, even the religious question of could the world have come from nothing."
A paper on this work is published in Physical Review Letters.
Sokolov is a research scientist at the Space Physics Research Laboratory in the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences. Nees is an associate research scientist at the Center for Ultrafast Optical Science and an adjunct associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Mourou is the A.D. Moore Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering who is currently with the Institut de la Lumiere Extreme in France. Also contributing is Natalia M. Naumova, with the Laboratoire d'Optique Appliquee in France.
This research was supported in part by the Department of Energy.
[/quote]
:science:
Source: [url]http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101208130038.htm[/url]
Science [B]rules.[/B]
There, fixed.
[quote]to test their theory's full potential, a HERCULES-type laser would have to be built at a particle accelerator such as the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford University. Such infrastructure is not currently planned.[/quote]
Fund this for the love of science.
:science: everywhere
[QUOTE=faze;26583334]Science rules.[/QUOTE]
Fixed.
*Cue Bill Nye theme*
This is pretty major, considering it pretty much violates the Conservation of Mass law doesnt it?
I trust that conservation of energy is intact?
[QUOTE=goon165;26583404]Fund this for the love of Science.[/QUOTE]
For the love of science :eng101:
I fucking love theoretical science.
Just in case paramud comes in and starts his shit about how theoretical science is useless and shouldn't be taken seriously.
You can theoretically suck theoretical sciences theoretical dick!
So what happens if you build a 600km long particle collider and a super-duper-alleooper-high-intensity laser beam?
[editline]9th December 2010[/editline]
[QUOTE=bravehat;26583444]I fucking love theoretical science.
[b]
Just in case paramud comes in and starts his shit about how theoretical science is useless and shouldn't be taken seriously.[/b]
You can theoretically suck theoretical sciences theoretical dick![/QUOTE]
Where is this man so I can have him raped.
[QUOTE=Timebomb757;26583424]Fixed.
*Cue Bill Nye theme*
This is pretty major, considering it pretty much violates the Conservation of Mass law doesnt it?[/QUOTE]
The universe existing violates the Conservation of Mass law.
[QUOTE=bravehat;26583444]I fucking love theoretical science.
Just in case paramud comes in and starts his shit about how theoretical science is useless and shouldn't be taken seriously.
You can theoretically suck theoretical sciences theoretical dick![/QUOTE]
Sucking theoretical dick appears to be a strength
Fuck yeah Scienece!
We're going to end up killing ourselves.
Why can't we just leave shit alone?
[QUOTE=Timebomb757;26583424]Fixed.
*Cue Bill Nye theme*
This is pretty major, considering it pretty much violates the Conservation of Mass law doesnt it?[/QUOTE]
Nah not really, at least I don't think so, all this is doing is converting vacuum energy into mass.
[editline]9th December 2010[/editline]
[QUOTE=IceTea;26583468]We're going to end up killing ourselves.
Why can't we just leave shit alone?[/QUOTE]
Can you people shut the fuck up.
Really, you're spineless fucking cowards with no will to grasp the universe by the short and curlies and to fucking slap it into submission til it bends to your will.
[QUOTE=faze;26583334]Science rocks.[/QUOTE]
Science rules.
BILL BILL BILL BILL BILL
[QUOTE=IceTea;26583468]We're going to end up killing ourselves.
Why can't we just leave shit alone?[/QUOTE]
Oh please tell me you aren't one of those hippy people who want us to go back to living in caves because it's "natural"
This isn't something new. Converting pure energy to condensed matter has been done before:
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pair_production[/url]
Though I acknowledge that this is a different approach, but just nothing really new. The energy still comes from photons and not from 'nothing'.
[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Pairproduction.png[/img]
The nucleus or another charged particle needs to be there to allow the conversion of a photon γ → e− + e+ into a pair of particle and anti-particle.
[QUOTE=Timebomb757;26583424]Fixed.
*Cue Bill Nye theme*
This is pretty major, considering it pretty much violates the Conservation of Mass law doesnt it?[/QUOTE]
No, because the particles and antiparticles canceling each other out doesn't create what you think of as nothing, meaning an absence. It creates a real "nothing". Not an easy concept to explain, but nothing exists and is observable and possible to manipulate.
E: mercurius completely misunderstands what I say.
[QUOTE=doggyalt;26583556]No, because the particles and antiparticles canceling each other out doesn't create what you think of as nothing, meaning an absence. It creates a real "nothing". Not an easy concept to explain, but nothing exists and is observable and possible to manipulate.[/QUOTE]
Antiparticles cancel each other out to high energy photons, e.g. gamma radiation, which is not 'nothing' as you just put it.
[editline]9th December 2010[/editline]
Why even bother explaining this:
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annihilation[/url]
Nothing new, known and tested for years already.
[QUOTE=mercurius;26583502]This isn't something new. Converting pure energy to condensed matter has been done before:
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pair_production[/url]
Though I acknowledge that this is a different approach, but just nothing really new. The energy still comes from photons and not from 'nothing'.
[img_thumb]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Pairproduction.png[/img_thumb]
The nucleus or another charged particle needs to be there to allow the conversion of a photon γ → e− + e+ into a pair of particle and anti-particle.[/QUOTE]
But the thing is, they state they take the energy out of the vacuum and create the pairs. Anyway, like you, I doubt this works as intended because it's more likely that energy is taken from the laser beam itself. But I have to read their paper first.
[QUOTE=aVoN;26583739]But the thing is, they state they take the energy out of the vacuum and create the pairs. Anyway, like you, I doubt this works as intended because it's more likely that energy is taken from the laser beam itself. But I have to read their paper first.[/QUOTE]
Well come on aVoN you of all people know that with enough energy just about anything is possible.
[QUOTE=aVoN;26583739]But the thing is, they state they take the energy out of the vacuum and create the pairs. Anyway, like you, I doubt this works as intended because it's more likely that energy is taken from the laser beam itself. But I have to read their paper first.[/QUOTE]
Maybe from the Casimir effect? Anyway, I study chemistry, probably you can explain their way when you read the paper, because the news article is a bit cryptic how the device works.
[b]level 2[/b]
Maybe I'm missing something, but isn't this against the laws of physics?
[QUOTE=IceTea;26583468]We're going to end up killing ourselves.
Why can't we just leave shit alone?[/QUOTE]
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGoMOK1Lpjc[/media]
Then again this was only posted on "Science Daily" which is rubbish compared to "Nature".
[quote][B]Nature is one of the world's most prestigious scientific journals, first published on 4 November 1869.[/B] It is the world's most cited interdisciplinary science journal.[1] Most scientific journals are now highly specialized, and Nature is among the few journals (the other weekly journals Science and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences are also prominent examples) that still publish original research articles across a wide range of scientific fields.[/quote]
[quote][B]Science Daily is a source for topical science articles.[/B] It features articles on a variety of topics including: computer science, nanotechnology, medicine, psychology, biology, geology, climate, space, physics, mathematics, chemistry, archeology, paleontology, and others. [B]It has been active since 1995.[/B] The articles are selected from news releases submitted by universities and other research institutions. [B]The scientific credibility of the reporter is not assessed, nor reported in the subsequent article on sciencedaily.com[/B].[/quote]
If this was serious there would be better sources.
Technically, they aren't creating matter out of nothing, they are creating matter out of energy. As, you know, you can't create something out of nothing.
/physicsfordummys
Oh Man Hopefully we can create stuff out of nothing us this.
[QUOTE=keroba2;26584173]Then again this was only posted on "Science Daily" which is rubbish compared to "Nature".
If this was serious there would be better sources.[/QUOTE]
Here's what the article would link to if they knew how to link: [url]http://ns.umich.edu/htdocs/releases/story.php?id=8167[/url]
At least they listed as the University of Michigan as their source
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