Matter-antimatter molecules of positronium observed in the lab for the first time

Matter-antimatter, how far we can infer its is existed? Should we believe antimatter cannot co-exist with matter for more than a very small measure of time because they annihilate each other to release enormous amounts of energy in the form of gamma radiation? How we can determine or measure of anti-matter if its cannot interact with any matter? How we can store it? A lot of question are in dubiousness and need an answers from physicists.

But, for the first time, a team of researchers at UC Riverside claim that they have succeed in created molecular positronium, an entirely new object in the laboratory. Briefly stable, each molecule is made up of a pair of electrons and a pair of their antiparticles, called positrons.

The researchers made the positronium molecules by firing intense bursts of positrons into a thin film of porous silica, which is the chemical name for the mineral quartz. Upon slowing down in silica, the positrons were captured by ordinary electrons to form positronium atoms.

When an electron meets a positron, their mutual annihilation may ensue or positronium, a briefly stable, hydrogen-like atom, may be formed. The stability of a positronium atom is threatened again when the atom collides with another positronium atom. Such a collision of two positronium atoms can result in their annihilation, accompanied by the production of a powerful and energetic type of electromagnetic radiation called gamma radiation, or the creation of a molecule of positronium, the kind Cassidy and Mills observed in their lab.

Study results appear in the Sept. 13 issue of Nature.

Source : Physorg