Article

2008-01-10 Science & Technology

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by mrp 2008-01-10 10:03|| || Front Page|| [8 views ] Top

#1 Antimatter is made up of three sorts of subatomic particles: positrons, antiprotons and antineutrons. Their equivalents in normal matter are the negatively charged electrons, positively charged protons and neutral neutrons. When two like particles of matter and antimatter meet they 'annihilate', disappearing in an explosion.

if so, than those pictures these guys have been aware of for 30 years are not what is being described here.

These folks should spend more time explainging things they can actually get right, then rationalizing hypotheicals to prop up a theory.

Oil for instance, is not a fossill fuel, its from meteor impacts, the pictures of shoemaker levy impacting jupiter prove it....so why the systemic obfuscation?.........me thinks science rather deal with unproveable hypotheicals that dont disturb the myths, and yet because of wide spread ignorance, they can appear like they are geniuses.

Posted by Spiny Gl 2511 2008-01-10 15:31|| 2008-01-10 15:31|| Front Page Top

#2 This raises more questions than it answers:

How are the positrons being produced, and are any other forms of antimatter being produced?

(Keep in mind it takes a lot less energy to make a positron than it does to make an antiproton).

Posted by Abdominal Snowman 2008-01-10 15:40|| 2008-01-10 15:40|| Front Page Top

#3 There's a bit more detail here.

Posted by lotp 2008-01-10 16:18|| 2008-01-10 16:18|| Front Page Top

#4 Thanks, lotp ... I think :)

Posted by mrp 2008-01-10 16:30|| 2008-01-10 16:30|| Front Page Top

#5 Binary star systems are ones in which a normal star is gradually being sucked towards a black hole or a neutron star.

There are plenty of binary systems of stars without either a black hole or neutron star involved.

Posted by Procopius2k 2008-01-10 16:40|| 2008-01-10 16:40|| Front Page Top

#6 I think that the whole "antimatter cloud" is an usubstantiated speculation. Gamma rays are more easily produced by electrical discharges. You can get gamma rays even with your garden variety (ok, with some of these more energetic ones) lightning bolts at the point of their discharge origin. Beside gmma rays, there is really nothing else in that location that would indicate antimatter.

And you know what? With mere 1 keV you can even trasmutate lighter elements--you don't need a star's nukular furnace to do that. Probably even less energy is requied nder om circumstances. Did read a paper recently that seemed to imply that plants can manufacture trace elements needed for their well-being even if these are not supplied from the environment--e.g. the experimentators made sure these trace elements were utterly missing, yet they were later found to be present in their test plants.

Posted by twobyfour 2008-01-10 16:58|| 2008-01-10 16:58|| Front Page Top

#7 PIMF: Probably even less energy is requied under some circumstances.

Posted by twobyfour 2008-01-10 16:59|| 2008-01-10 16:59|| Front Page Top

#8 2by4 says I think that the whole "antimatter cloud" is an usubstantiated speculation. "

Copy that big brother.........

this teams output, moves in leaps and generalizations. If the cloud exists and is antimatter related and its interacted with matter completing its annihilation, than the cloud does not really eixst..........does it now!

So , the team is wrong, and should stumble along to some other well funded data output program, ensuring the community of myths a long and fruitful life.

Posted by Spiny Gl 2511 2008-01-10 18:02|| 2008-01-10 18:02|| Front Page Top

#9 Spiny Gl 2511 dear, in science the Theory comes after the data either proves or disproves the hypothesis... which is why Einstein was so excited when the solar eclipse showed he was right about gravity bending light.

Posted by trailing wife">trailing wife 2008-01-10 18:24|| 2008-01-10 18:24|| Front Page Top

#10 has finally been solved

appears to derive from

And why I'm not going to get excited about a single publication. If another several groups of physicists and astronomers can substantiate that hypothesis, then I'll think about believing them.

Posted by trailing wife">trailing wife 2008-01-10 18:30|| 2008-01-10 18:30|| Front Page Top

#11 trailing wife, yes hypothesis would have been the correct characterization, and thank you so much for reminding me......

the error ive made and the errors to come, from this whole hypothesis, deserve to be weighed on a scale......please advise time and location.

why do i love the burg so much....? because its fast moving, fluid, accurate, and well endowed with humility and comity.

rock on

Posted by Spiny Gl 2511 2008-01-10 18:35|| 2008-01-10 18:35|| Front Page Top

#12 twobyfour, it really isn't that hard to conclude there is a "positron cloud." There are plenty of gamma rays around, true. But when you see a spike in the energy distribution at 512KeV, you can be pretty sure that there was some e+ e- annihilation going on. There being plenty of e- around already, the unique thing this tells you is that in the direction these excess 512KeV gammas come from, you can find some positrons.

"What makes them?" is the interesting question. It isn't hard to think of some mechanisms: pair production from high energy gammas, for instance; or the end of a decay chain of a pi+. The gammas can arise quite naturally from pi0 decays, and pions of all varieties can be produced when a "cosmic ray" proton hits some bit of interstellar gas. (Most cosmic rays that reach the Earth's surface are muons resulting from primary cosmic rays interacting in the atmosphere.) So far so straightforward. We know these cosmic ray protons exist, the question is they how they are produced.

One "simple" production method involves the extremely intense magnetic fields projected to exist around neutron stars and black holes. We can see jets of matter coming from ordinary stars, and jets coming from galaxies (current theory suggesting that a supermassive black hole resides there), and it seems like a good guess that neutron stars originate some other jets we see. If the magnetic fields are intense enough there should be a component of very high energy protons in a jet.

This report merely means that these scientists think they've measured the cloud position to be closer to what they think are neutron-star plus ordinary star binaries than to the black hole estimated to be at the galactic core. That means multiple small sources rather than a single big source.

Posted by James">James 2008-01-10 19:25|| http://idontknowbut.blogspot.com]">[http://idontknowbut.blogspot.com] 2008-01-10 19:25|| Front Page Top

#13 Spiny Gl 2511, on the scale of zero to the universe, your errors (and mine, fortunately!) don't look very big. ;-) Would you care for a cup of tea while we watch the Rantburg professors take this thing apart? I think Beethoven's Fifth is appropriate background music, unless you can think of something better.

Posted by trailing wife">trailing wife 2008-01-10 20:02|| 2008-01-10 20:02|| Front Page Top

#14 nonsense......there is motion in this cloudy space, and that means the antimatter component would by random occurrance pass through a matter bearing area. at some time and annilihation would occur. meaning there would be no cloud or remnants of the anti matter.

This hypothesis is null of intellect.

Posted by Spiny Gl 2511 2008-01-10 20:37|| 2008-01-10 20:37|| Front Page Top

#15 truthfully, I hate tea, but if you have some otherperformance enhancer...like coffee....ok...and BTW i dont need no stinkin experts to figure out when A is A.

God Bless America just rock on.

Posted by Spiny Gl 2511 2008-01-10 20:40|| 2008-01-10 20:40|| Front Page Top

#16 Spiny and TW, break out the toblerone and sit down for a klatsch with James on this topic; he's been hunting subatomic particles for a living for nearly 30 years. I'll make the coffee/tea/lemonade.

Posted by mom (mrs. James)">mom (mrs. James) 2008-01-10 21:43|| http://idontknowbut.blogspot.com]">[http://idontknowbut.blogspot.com] 2008-01-10 21:43|| Front Page Top

#17 James, yes, spikes at 511 KeV have been recorded. But that still does not indicate antimatter cloud, just some matter/antimater anihilation, a secondary effect of high energy discharge. There have been even much larger values recoded in other areas. What does that mean? A possible fury of darkwing duck?

I am serious. I see sciencedaily.com, but mayhaps if it was called mythologydaily.com, it would be a more close to reality.

extremely intense magnetic fields projected to exist

What does that tell you? Just pretend that you don't know any "current" astrophysics and use common sense. Yep, a "current" is involved, but not that of the time.

around neutron stars and black holes.

Mythology.

We can see jets of matter coming from ordinary stars, and jets coming from galaxies

What does that tell you? Go to a plasma physics lab and see it in a scaled down version. As above, so below. Scale it up, scale it down, the same phenomenon.

(current theory suggesting that a supermassive black hole resides there)

Mythology again.

and it seems like a good guess that neutron stars originate some other jets we see.

No, it does not seem like, from here where I am.

Posted by twobyfour 2008-01-10 22:44|| 2008-01-10 22:44|| Front Page Top

#18 You're serving Toblerone, mom? I'm coming over to your house! Spiny GI, it sounds like your coffee is being poured. Would you like cream and sugar?

*happy sigh* I do love watching those who know more than I about something discuss it! It doesn't matter what, actually -- there's so much y'all know that I don't.

Posted by trailing wife 2008-01-10 23:01|| 2008-01-10 23:01|| Front Page Top

#19 I have a question about annihilation for anyone who understands this better than I do. Which is for shit. If a neutron is neutrally charged, what how could the antineutron annihilate it? What the hell could be the opposite neutral?

Posted by Mike N. 2008-01-10 23:21|| 2008-01-10 23:21|| Front Page Top

#20 Mike, Neutron nd antineutron are neutrally charged components, they differ in tat the firt is made rom quarks, the second from antiquarks. No charge, no bang.
What anihilates are electrons/positrons and protons/antiprotons, with some built in assymetry in favor of the former of these two pairs (no one knows why). Neutrons and antineutrons remain, but get a good kick out of it.

Posted by twobyfour 2008-01-10 23:46|| 2008-01-10 23:46|| Front Page Top

#21 I hope you can read it, my keyboard is acting up again. Darn.

Posted by twobyfour 2008-01-10 23:47|| 2008-01-10 23:47|| Front Page Top

23:47 twobyfour
23:46 twobyfour
23:21 Mike N.
23:20 Redneck Jim
23:04 JosephMendiola
23:03 JosephMendiola
23:01 trailing wife
23:01 JosephMendiola
22:44 twobyfour
22:16 www
22:16 Abu do you love
22:14 Rex Mundi
22:14 JosephMendiola
22:11 JosephMendiola
22:08 JosephMendiola
22:05 RD
22:05 JosephMendiola
22:01 3dc
21:57 Old Patriot
21:43 mom (mrs. James)
21:16 Eric Jablow
20:56 JosephMendiola
20:52 Eric Jablow
20:46 mhw