ANTIMATTER IN THE UNIVERSE

Without giving a physics course on the constituents of matter, we must remember that
the matter around us is made of: p, n and e.

The p and the n are particles which are heavier than the e and they are themselves
composite, since they are made of quarks. These are the building blocks that make up
matter. There are also other particles such as neutrinos, photons, muons, the list is long.
They are particles that do not constitute matter. For some of them, because they are not
stable enough and for others, because they do not exert a strong enough force between
them to bind together. These particles can interact with each other (electric charges
attract each other if they have opposite signs and repel each other if they have the same
sign). For example, the p's attract the e and that's what makes the e remain localized
around them and it's also what makes us have atoms which are linked and stable entities,
made up of 'e and p. The description of these interactions is something quite complex
and if we want to describe this rigorously and as precisely as possible, we must appeal to
quantum mechanics.

We know today that the world responds to laws which are not those dictated to us by
intuition and which are those of quantum mechanics. To describe how charges attract or
repel each other requires a quantum version of Coulomb's force, called quantum field
theory. This theory would have emerged at the beginning of the 20th century. This
quantum field theory included, in its first versions, certain inconsistencies... Things
which, in the theory itself, did not make sense. It was good at describing some
phenomena, but not all of them, and there was a lot of activity at the beginning of the
20th century to try to make this quantum field theory coherent and more efficient.

In particular Paul Dirac, at the beginning of the 1930s, to resolve some of these
inconsistencies that describe the electromagnetic interactions in the quantum framework,
had to introduce a new particle associated with the e ect of opposite charge. When we
say ''introduce a new particle'', in fact, it means that there was a quantum field theory
within which there were defects and Dirac made a more elaborate and more complex
version of it, and one of the consequences of this theory, if it were correct, is that there
had to exist a new particle, similar to e, but with certain different properties (in
particular, the charge had to be opposite and there was a property related to spin…)

So, it was really a theoretical prediction that he made and at the beginning of the 20th
century, when that was done, it was really the birth of a new way of looking at physics:
that is, say to trust largely in the mathematical aspect. Before that, we tended to try to
understand things with our hands. When Maxwell, for example, wrote his equations
describing electromagnetism, he had in mind a medium around us which was agitated by
vortices of currents (ether). He established his laws of electromagnetism thanks to this
mechanistic model of an ether with a complex structure. For him, electromagnetism was
something very concrete.

Starting with the 20th century, things changed. It is actually already changing with
Einstein. When he publishes his theory of relativity, it is already something quite
mathematical. This theory is indeed based on mathematical properties of space-time.
There, with quantum field theory, it's the same: Dirac trusts math! He thinks it's worked
well so far, describing the Universe with maths, so let's continue, push the plug as far as
we can! And it works!!

The particle with the opposite charge to the e is later discovered (in cosmic rays), a
positive electron or ''positron'' (anti-electron). So the anti-electron exists and that's what
we're going to call from there: antimatter. Antimatter is the particles that appear when
you try to do quantum electrodynamics or quantum field theory, and which have
properties very similar to those of ordinary particles, but with, in particular, a sign of
charge opposite. There is nothing really sensational so far, except that the math works!

At this point, antimatter isn't some sci-fi thing or one with weird properties, it's an
electron but it's positive. It is a particle which is stable. Here, if you take an e and leave
it there, in the void, it will remain there indefinitely. Just as an e is a stable particle, so is
a positron. He is a twin, a positive twin of the electron.

It was then discovered over time that all particles in fact had their antiparticle. They
have not all been detected so easily, but the theoretical predictions say that they must
exist. We actually discovered them one after the other. Electron - positron, proton -
antiproton, neutron - antineutron, neutrino - antineutrino, quarks - antiquarks, photon -
photon. Note that the photon is the particle associated with light and it is its own
antiparticle. It exists and it is absolutely indistinguishable from the other. It has exactly
the same properties (this is perhaps also the case for the antineutrino, the question is still
open today).These antiparticles can interact with each other, bond to form antimatter. In
the same way that an e will fit around the p to form an atom, by exactly the same laws,
an anti-electron will fit around an antiproton to form an anti-atom! The same laws
govern these connections.

ANNIHILATION

Particles and antiparticles interact and can: repel each other, attract each other, transform
into other particles. It's something that goes against common sense, because we have
Lavoisier's idea...
When an antiparticle meets its particle, a microscopic phenomenon of annihilation can
occur, that is to say that they disappear to make way for something else, for example:
two photons emitted in opposite directions having properties of energy and well-defined
wavelengths. This is one of the predictions of quantum field theory.

A positive charge and a negative charge attract each other and can eventually form a
bonded state. An electron and a positron can be a bound state, not stable because
quickly, the two particles will annihilate to give something else. That's the property of
antimatter that gives it a somewhat special aura. We say to ourselves: ''woaaa, something
crazy is going to happen!'', but in fact, it's that a particle and the antiparticle have a high
probability of annihilating each other if we put them in contact and this, quite quickly.
This means that the lifetime of an antiparticle is quite short, since it will quickly meet a
particle (cousin of opposite charge) and annihilate itself, in our world made of matter
(and therefore, of particles). For her, the environment is hostile, and therefore it is not
because she is unstable.

CREATION OF ANTIMATTER

The ATHENA and ATRA (CERN) collaborations manipulate H anti-atoms to study the
physics of antimatter. You need a source of positrons and a source of antiprotons, put
them together, slow them down and make them combine. Challenge: test whether
antimatter obeys the same laws of physics as matter. On theoretical grounds this is
believed to be the case, but it is important to experimentally verify one's theoretical
predictions.

Beta decay (radioactivity)

Spallation: energy collisions and matter creation

Antimatter in the vicinity of the Earth: an important source of antimatter in the vicinity
of the Earth is the Sun. Indeed, solar flares, which are extremely energetic phenomena,
can create e-positron pairs. For example, in July 2002, a solar eruption created 1/2kg of
antimatter, enough to cover the energy consumption of a large country for several days
(500g of positrons that we would put with 500g of electrons). How did they see it? They
measured the characteristic line emitted when they annihilate with the e. It is the line
that we can detect.

THE PRACTICAL USES OF ANTIMATTER

The positrons are used, it's not that we're trying to sell it! It's just that when we start
talking about antimatter, the idea is often that it's something exotic, we don't know if it
exists, etc. Still, it does: it's something very standard in physics. There are still
theoretical questions on the subject, but not at this level at all. So we use antimatter for
very specific purposes, in particular in medical imaging, in positron emission
tomography (what we commonly call PET SCANS). The idea is as follows: you are
made to ingest a radioactive body at a sufficiently low dose so that it does not cause you
a problem. Radioactive atoms which will emit, while disintegrating, positrons. When
they are in your body, each positron when the decay occurs (almost instantaneously) will
find an electron, decay with it, and emit 2 gamma photons. It turns out that the body is
transparent to these energies. The photons will go through you and that's what we'll see
at that moment: 2 photons leaving from a point. We surround the patient with detectors
and we see: a photon which arrives at one end of the detector, a photon which arrives at
another, we draw a line and we deduce that somewhere, on this line, a positron has been
emitted.

As it has just been told, it may seem without interest, but there is a small subtlety and it
is the following: these radioactive bodies, these radioactive atoms, we put them in
molecules which, biologically, will only go on some sites. For example, molecules that
are in certain sugars, which will be used when the body needs energy. So, if we do this:
we put a radioactive atom on molecules that will supply the brain with energy, we make
the patient swallow this, it will go to his brain and then, we ask him to think of
something (ex: the beach), there are then certain areas of the brain which will be
activated more than others and therefore, which will need more sugar than others and
therefore, which will consume these molecules and that is that place where the
disintegrations will take place. Suddenly, by observing several of these pairs of photons,
we will see two gamma rays emitted on a line (at the ends), then from there, then from
there, etc., etc. (see illustration below)

Finally, by cross-checking all that, it will come from a small point or an area and we will
be able to determine that indeed, it is this area that has absorbed energy and that was
active at that time. -there. That's how we do imagery. It is one of the methods used to
find out what is going on in the brain. There may also be applications in the treatment of
cancer. These are quite distant perspectives, it is ''protontherapy''. High-energy p's are
sent to cells to destroy them. It is envisaged to send not p but antiprotons on a cell. It
will annihilate with the cells that are there, release energy and blow up the cell, destroy
it effectively and voila! There are also military applications related to energy storage.

Unfortunately, itis very difficult to store antimatter. As soon as a particle and its
antiparticle meet, they immediately annihilate (we need a magnetic bottle)…