Tag Archives: CERN

ALPHA Stores Antimatter Atoms Over a Quarter of an Hour – and Still Counting

*Berkeley Lab physicists join with their international colleagues in reaching a new frontier in antimatter science*

The ALPHA Collaboration, an international team of scientists working at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, has reported storing a total of 309 atoms of antihydrogen, some for up to 1,000 seconds (almost 17 minutes), with an indication of much longer storage time as well.

ALPHA announced in November, 2010, that they had succeeded in storing antimatter atoms for the first time ever, having captured 38 atoms of antihydrogen and storing each for a sixth of a second. In the weeks following, ALPHA continued to collect anti-atoms and hold them for longer and longer times. (more…)

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Anti-Helium Discovered in the Heart of STAR

*Berkeley Lab nuclear scientists join with their international colleagues in the latest record-breaking discovery at RHIC*

Eighteen examples of the heaviest antiparticle ever found, the nucleus of antihelium-4, have been made in the STAR experiment at RHIC, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory.

“The STAR experiment is uniquely capable of finding antihelium‑4,” says the STAR experiment’s spokesperson, Nu Xu, of the Nuclear Science Division (NSD) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). “STAR already holds the record for massive antiparticles, last year having identified the anti-hypertriton, which contains three constituent antiparticles. With four antinucleons, antihelium-4 is produced at a rate a thousand times lower yet. To identify the 18 examples required sifting through the debris of a billion gold-gold collisions.” (more…)

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Time Machine Built in Europe, Russian Scientists Say

Russian physicists seriously believe that the Large Hadron Collider can be used for time travel. However, it will only happen when it starts working at full capacity and stops breaking down. If earlier time travel was considered science fiction, now it suddenly turned into the favorite pet project of theoretical physicists. Renowned physicist Kip Thorne of the California Institute of Technology once said in one of his lectures:

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