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RE: Probing antimatter in its deepest details at CERN
antihydrogen
Didn't know this exists. Does that mean there are also other anti-particles and is there an anti-me?? :-)
And if particles and anti-particles are based on the same quantum functions, is it also possible to have more than just two instances of one atomic state? Something like antihydrogen, antihydrogen1, antihydrogen2 etc..?
You should move the tldr; segment to the top. I accidentally read the entire post..
In practice, one could have anti-everything. However, producing antiatoms is a pain and we have managed to produce so far only a couple of atomic species (antihydrogen and antohelium). Therefore, we are far from being able to get your antiyou :)
Usually, what is referred to as antihydrogen is uniquely defined: it is an antiatom made of one antiproton and one positron. However, in the same way we have several isotopes of each atom, we could have several isotopes of the antiatoms.
This is on purpose: the summary comes at the end ;)
Does that mean the quantum functions are only serving the purpose of allowing states based on known subatomic particles? Or the other way around: What did we know first, positrons or the quantum functions that describe them?
I know that now and I will not fall for it again:-)
The positron was discovered after the birth of quantum mechanics. In fact, antiparticles appeared naturally i the theory (the development of Klein-Gordon and Dirac equations) and physicists from that time were not understanding what they were.
To answer your question: The wave functions will be different for the different (anti)atomic species.
I hope it helps!
This topic is waaay above me, but actually yes, I can imagine something to what you've said. Thanks for that.
You are very welcome!
If I am not mistaken, each particle can have its antiparticle which has the same mass but opposite electric and magnetic properties. The opposite of a proton is an antiproton; the opposite of a electron is a antielectron or a positron. So if you join them together you get an antihydrogen atom - the physical laws are the same for antimatter and matter (even their spectrum!). In theory nothing stops you from having an antiparticle of any atom but in practice antimatter is very hard to deal with since you can't store it like regular matter. If it touches anything it annihilates and "reduces" to energy (EM radiation / elementary particles)
This is correct. This is also what I said in my post ;)
It sounds like magnetic and electric are the same. What if for example there are several magnetic dimensions? This would open the possibility for another type of antiparticle.
There are not exactly the same. Particles would accelerate in an electric field whilst magnetic fields can be used to control their track.
Sorry, but I didn't understand the question. Can you be more specific? There is no such a thing like a magnetic dimension (only space and time here).
Thanks for replying to a complete physics dork:-)
With magnetic dimensions, I had in mind that magnetic fields have a plus and a minus pole and I thought perhaps there could be particles with more than one pole for each, something like that:
Or is this a different kind of particle.. or two merged into one?
Wait a second.. I just realize my error: With such a configuration, the magnetic fields would merge and result in a new plus/minus pair.
Not bad. I answered my own physics question. It may have been a dumb one, but I'm also kind of a bit proud of myself:-)
There are systems (i.e. not particles themselves but things more complex) that have more than one pole. For instance, at the LHC, we have dipole magnets, but also quadrupoles (like in the picture or here).