![]() ![]() The group would assemble hybrid matter-antimatter atoms by firing antiprotons into liquid helium. In 2013, Sótér was working at the CERN laboratory on an antimatter experiment. That’s why a hobby project of Anna Sótér, at the time a graduate student of Hori’s, initially seemed counterintuitive. For instance, they might employ thinner gases where atomic collisions will be rarer - and energy levels will stay more pristine. Spectroscopy practitioners like Hori spend their careers fighting this “broadening” of spectral lines. The cohort’s crisp intrinsic colors get lost in rainbowlike smears. Shine a laser at the distorted particles and each atom will respond idiosyncratically. The constant jostling deforms the atoms, messing with their electrons - and therefore the host atom’s energy levels. Atoms careen about, crashing into neighboring atoms in chaotic ways. An atom’s “spectral lines” reveal natural constants, such as the electron’s charge or how much lighter the electron is than the proton, with extreme precision.īut ours is a flawed world. In an ideal world, experimentalists would see every single hydrogen atom, say, shining with the same sharp hues. “This is, if you want, the color of the atom,” said Masaki Hori, a physicist at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics who uses spectroscopy to study antimatter. When it returns to its previous energy level, the electron emits light of a particular wavelength. A laser beam with just the right energy, for instance, can briefly push an electron to a higher energy level. One way to gauge the properties of atoms and their components is to tickle them with a laser and see what happens, a technique called laser spectroscopy. “Their community will find more exciting possibilities to trap exotic things.” Chill Antiprotons He anticipates that the result will lead to a new way to capture and scrutinize elusive forms of matter. Perhaps more importantly – after cosmic ray interactions and nuclear reactions within the hearts of stars – it’s now known to be the third natural process in which these reactions occur.“It’s very exciting,” said Mikhail Lemeshko, an atomic physicist at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria who was not involved with the research. This study provides the first unequivocal evidence that lightning can generate nuclear reactions within our atmosphere. This antimatter was then quickly and explosively annihilated upon making contact with electrons. ![]() They then naturally emitted neutrons, neutrinos and antimatter poistrons. ![]() Unstable carbon, nitrogen and oxygen isotopes were being produced by gamma ray interactions. These signatures could only be matched to one very specific set of situations. Not only did they pick up on high levels of gamma radiation matching several lightning strikes, but they also picked up on very specific energy signatures that followed on shortly thereafter. This February, a potent thunderstorm brewed in the Sea of Japan, just offshore. They hoped to directly link these nuclear reactions to lightning strikes – and they weren’t disappointed. In order to solve this mystery once and for all, a team of Japanese astrophysicists led by Kyoto University decided to hook their instrumentation up to a series of radiation detectors installed at a nuclear power plant in Niigata. ![]()
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