Quark deconfinement in antiproton annihilation at rest on light nuclei

The production of low-energy antimatter provides unique opportunities to search for new physics in an unexplored regime. Testing gravitational interactions with antimatter is one such opportunity. Here a scenario based on Lorentz and CPT violation in the Standard-Model Extension is considered in which anomalous gravitational effects in antimatter could arise.     

Gamma ray astronomy and search for antimatter in the universe

Gamma ray astronomy provides a powerful tool for searching antimatter in the universe; it probably provides the only means to determine, if the universe has baryon symmetry. Presently existing gamma-ray observations can be interpreted without postulating the existence of antimatter. However, the measurements are not precise enough to definitely exclude the possibility of its existence. The search for antimatter belongs to one of the main scientific objectives of the Gamma Ray Observatory GRO of NASA, which will be launched in 1990 by the Space Shuttle.     

Isotopic grand unification with the inclusion of gravity

We introduce a dual lifting of unified gauge theories, the first characterized by theisotopies, which are axiom-preserving maps into broader structures with positive-definite generalized units used for the representation of matter under the isotopies of the Poincaré symmetry, and the second characterized by theisodualities, which are anti-isomorphic maps with negative-definite generalized units used for the representation of antimatter under the isodualities of the Poincaré symmetry. We then submit, apparently for the first time, a novel grand unification with the inclusion of gravity for matter embedded in the generalized positive-definite units of unified gauge theories while gravity for antimatter is embedded in the isodual isounit. We then show that the proposed grand unification provides realistic possibilities for a resolution of the axiomatic incompatibilities between gravitation and electroweak interactions due to curvature, antimatter and the fundamental space-time symmetries.     

Antimatter in the universe

The models leading to a high abundance of antimatter in the universe are discussed. Special attention is payed to the model of antimatter creation in the form of compact stellar-like objects. Such objects can contribute significantly to the cosmological dark matter. Observational signatures of antimatter in the Galaxy are discussed.     

探测宇宙反物质

在空间中直接探测宇宙反物质是一个有根本重要性的科学课题。本文评述了探测宇宙反物质的实验现况及其前景。     

Anti-helium flux as a signature for antimatter globular clusters in our Galaxy

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer experiment is shown to be sensitive to test the hypothesis on the existence of antimatter globular cluster in our Galaxy. The hypothesis follows from the analysis of possible tests for the mechanisms of baryosynthesis and uses antimatter domains in the matter-dominated Universe as the probe for the physics underlying the origin of matter. The interval of masses for the antimatter in our Galaxy is fixed from below by the condition of antimatter domain survival in the matter-dominated Universe and from above by the observed gamma-ray flux. For this interval, the expected fluxes of anti-helium-3 and anti-helium-4 are calculated with account for their interaction with the matter in the Galaxy.     

Possible measurements of the gravitational acceleration with neutral antimatter

The interest in measuring the gravitational acceleration using neutral antimatter is discussed as well as the advantages compared with using charged antimatter, and a few possible experimental schemes are briefly discussed.     

反物质的存在及反氢的制造

本文简述了人类寻找反物质的历程；目前产生反氢原子的方法及利用反物质的美好前景．     

CP violation and the matter–antimatter asymmetry of the Universe

In our everyday environment one observes only matter. Thatʼs quite a fortunate situation! Any sizeable presence of antimatter on Earth, from the enormous energy it would release through annihilation with matter, would prevent us talking about it! For the physicist this fact, at first sight obvious, is nevertheless a kind of surprise: antimatter, which is observed in cosmic rays, in radioactive decays of nuclei, which has been copiously produced and extensively studied in accelerators and which is nowadays currently used in hospitals, turns out to have pretty much the same properties as matter. Moreover, the fact that matter dominates appears to be a general property of our Universe: no evidence of large quantities of antimatter has been observed at any distance from us. Why would matter have taken the advantage on antimatter? In this short review we explain how, through a limited number of basic elements, one can find answers to this question. Matter and antimatter have, in fact, not exactly the same properties: from laboratory experiments CP conservation is known not to be a fundamental law of nature.     

Superheavy matter, strange matter, antimatter and the structure of the vacuum

The extension of the periodic system into various new areas is investigated. Experiments for the synthesis of superheavy elements and the predictions of magic numbers are reviewed. Further on, investigations on hypernuclei and the possible production of antimatter clusters in heavy-ion collisions are reported. Various versions of the meson field theory serve as effective field theories at the basis of modern nuclear structure and suggest structure in the vacuum which might be important for the production of hyper- and antimatter.     

Observation of the Antimatter Nuclei in Relativistic Heavy Ion Collisions

Recently antimatter hyper-triton nuclei ${(_{\bar{\Lambda}}^3\bar{H})}$ and antimatter helium nuclei ${(_2^4\bar{He})}$ are discovered with the Solenoidal Tracker At Rhic detector in relativistic heavy ion collisions at Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) (STAR Collaboration in Science 328(5974):58–62, 2010; STAR Collaboration in Nature 473:353–356, 2011). In this presentation, discoveries of antimatter particle are historically scanned and the recent observations at RHIC are reported in details as well as potential possibilities of discovery of antimatter nuclei at ALICE.     

Antimatter in the Universe: constraints from gamma-ray astronomy

We review gamma-ray observations that constrain antimatter – both baryonic and leptonic - in the Universe. Antimatter is probed through ordinary matter, with the resulting annihilation gamma-rays providing indirect evidence for its presence. Although it is generally accepted that equal amounts of matter and antimatter have been produced in the Big Bang, gamma-rays have so far failed to detect substantial amounts of baryonic antimatter in the Universe. Conversely, positrons are abundantly observed through their annihilation in the central regions of our Galaxy and, although a wealth of astrophysical sources are plausible, their very origin is still unknown. As both antimatter questions – the source of the Galactic positrons and the baryon asymmetry in the Universe - can be investigated through the low energy gamma-ray channel, the mission concept of a dedicated space telescope is sketched out.     

What Would Be Outcome of a Big Crunch?

I suggest the existence of a still undiscovered interaction: repulsion between matter and antimatter. The simplest and the most elegant candidate for such a force is gravitational repulsion between matter and antimatter. I argue that such a force may give birth to a new Universe; by transforming an eventual Big Crunch of our Universe, to an event similar to Big Bang. In fact, when a collapsing Universe is reduced to a supermassive black hole of a small size, a very strong field of the conjectured force may create particle-antiparticle pairs from the surrounding quantum vacuum. The amount of antimatter created from the physical vacuum is equal to the decrease of mass of “black hole Universe” and violently repelled from it. When the size of the black hole is sufficiently small, the creation of antimatter may become so huge and fast, that matter of our Universe may disappear in a fraction of the Planck time. So fast transformation of matter to antimatter may look like a Big Bang with initial size about 30 orders of magnitude greater than the Planck length, questioning the need for inflation. In addition, a Big Crunch, of a Universe dominated by matter, leads to a new Universe dominated by antimatter, and vice versa; without need to invoke CP violation as explanation of matter-antimatter asymmetry. Simply, our present day Universe is dominated by matter, because the previous Universe was dominated by antimatter.     

Antimatter and cosmology

This paper discusses two aspects of antimatter and cosmology: (1) the fundamental cosmological question as to whether antimatter plays an equally important role as matter in the universe (overall baryon symmetry), and (2) cosmic-ray antimatter tests for the nature of the dark matter in the universe.     

反氢和反原子

自从狄立预言反粒子的存在后，虽然人们已经找到了几乎每个粒子的反粒子，但几代物理学家苦苦寻找着由反粒子组成的以原子，１９９６年１月ＣＥＲＮ宣布制成反氢原子，打开了通向反物质世界的大门子，引起轰动，文章叙述这一重大发现的物理背景，报道了上述发现，并展望由此开辟的崭新领域。     

Antiproton annihilation in the galaxy as a source of diffuse γ background

A model is developed for antimatter loss by a globular cluster of antimatter stars and its annihilation with a gas of ordinary matter. The flux of photons produced in proton-antiproton annihilation is shown to reproduce the observed γ background measured by the EGRET telescope. The maximum possible number of antimatter stars presumably existing in the Milky Way Galaxy is estimated on the basis of a comparison with observational data.     

Antimatter gravity studies with interferometry

There has never been a direct measurement of the gravitational force on antimatter. This paper describes a possible measurement of this force by measuring the phase shift of neutral antimatter in a transmission-grating interferometer caused by the Earth’s gravitational field. This experiment avoids the severe problem of shielding stray electromagnetic fields necessary for making a gravity measurement with charged particles, and also avoids the need to trap neutral particles. The neutral antimatter for this experiment could be either antihydrogen, positronium, or antineutrons. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

反质子间相互作用的研究

随着对反物质研究的深入,人们需要迫切知道反质子之间的相互作用力是怎样的,是否与质子之间的作用是对称的。对这个作用力的测量,有助于我们理解反物质原子核的形成机制以及对物质-反物质对称性的理解。为此,STAR合作组利用相对论重离子加速器中金核-金核碰撞中产生的丰富的反质子,通过反质子-反质子动量关联函数的测量,并扣除了通过其他粒子衰变过来的次级反质子与其他反粒子关联的污染,精确地构建了反质子-反质子关联函数。然后,结合量子多粒子关联理论,定量提取出反质子-反质子的有效力程和散射长度这两个基本作用参数。研究表明,在实验精度内,反质子间的相互作用与正质子保持一致。反质子-反质子之间的强相互作用存在着吸引,它们可以克服由于同号（负电荷）的反质子-反质子之间的库仑排斥而结合成反物质原子核。这项研究首次实现了对反物质间相互作用力的测量,为进一步研究反原子核的形成和属性奠定了基础。同时为CPT对称性的检验提供了一种新的方式,对人类深刻认识物质世界的构成及其运动规律具有重要意义。With undergoing researches on antimatter physics, it is crucial to understand what the interaction between antiprotons is. Is it the same as the interaction between protons? This measurement will definitely help us to understand the formation mechanism of antimatter nuclei as well as the symmetry of matter and antimatter. In this context, our STAR collaboration measured the correlation function of antiproton-antiproton pairs from 200 GeV/c Au+Au collisions. After substracting the residual correlation due to the secondary antiprotons that decayed from other particles, the primary antiproton-antiproton correlation function is extracted. By applying the quantum theory of multi-particle correlation, two key parameters that characterize the corresponding strong interaction:namely, the scattering length (f₀) and effective range (d₀) were obtained. Within error bars, it is found that the f₀ and d₀ for the antiproton-antiproton interaction are consistent with their antiparticle counterparts -the ones for the proton-proton interaction. Like the force that holds ordinary protons together within the nuclei of atoms, the force between antiprotons is attractive and strong, which overcomes the tendency of the like (negatively) charged particles to repel one another, and allows the antiprotons to bind to form antinucleus. The current measurement is for the first time to measure the interaction between antimatter, it offers a foundation to understanding the structure of more-complex antinuclei and their properties. Also our measurement offers a new way to test the CPT symmetry, which has an important impact for human beings to understand the law of motion in our world.     

Exotic nuclei: From superheavies to hyper-and antimatter

The extension of the periodic system into various new areas is investigated. Experiments for the synthesis of superheavy elements and the predictions of magic numbers are reviewed. Further on, investigations on hypernuclei and the possible production of antimatter clusters in heavy-ion collisions are reported. Various versions of the meson field theory serve as effective field theories at the basis of modern nuclear structure and suggest structure in vacuum that might be important for the production of hyper-and antimatter.     

Derivation of the principle of equivalence for antimatter

In view of the announcement of some experiments testing the principle of equivalence for antimatter, we give here stringent arguments, based on elementary and well-established physical principles, that these experiments will turn out negative. The question is important because disproving the principle of equivalence (equality of inertial and gravitating mass) would entail a breakdown of general relativity. (There is only one type of geodesics and there are no antigeodesics for antimatter).