Physicists Build Bigger 'Bottles' of Antimatter to Unlock Nature's Secrets

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ScienceDaily (Feb. 20, 2011) — Once regarded as the stuff of science fiction, antimatter -- the mirror image of the ordinary matter in our observable universe -- is now the focus of laboratory studies around the world.

While physicists routinely produce antimatter with radioisotopes and particle colliders, cooling these antiparticles and containing them for any length of time is another story. Once antimatter comes into contact with ordinary matter it "annihilates" -- or disappears in a flash of gamma radiation.

Clifford Surko, a professor of physics at UC San Diego who is constructing what he hopes will be the world's largest antimatter container, said physicists have recently developed new methods to make special states of antimatter in which they can create large clouds of antiparticles, compress them and make specially tailored beams for a variety of uses.
He described the progress made in this area, including his own efforts, at the annual meeting in Washington, DC, of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His talk, "Taming Dirac's Particle," led off the session entitled "Through the Looking Glass: Recent Adventures in Antimatter," at 1:30 pm on February 18.


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http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110218142438.htm