We have all seen and read more than once about how the hero of a science fiction movie or book flies on a spaceship that uses antimatter as fuel, and then lands on another hostile planet, pulls out his blaster with charges of antimatter and … What happens next - you know very well. Unfortunately, reality has not yet matured to such a cosmic romance. No, scientists have long ago discovered antimatter and are even conducting research on it, but the only place where this happens is the dungeons of laboratories.
The bottom line is that the resulting antimatter has never left the walls of this or that laboratory where it was produced. If it is received, then it is examined on the spot. But it seems that science is finally ripe for the transition to a new level. The researchers plan to transport the obtained antimatter from one laboratory to another for the first time in history, using a special vehicle equipped with the appropriate equipment for transportation.
In our case, point "A" is the Antiproton Decelerator installation, where antimatter will be obtained, and point "B" is the ISOLDE installation, where antimatter will be used to obtain isotopes, atomic nuclei with a larger number of neutrons. Later, they will be pushed against normal atoms. Both facilities are owned by CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research). The laboratories where the installations are located are only a couple of hundred meters apart. But how complicated these several hundred meters are!
Installing ISOLDE.
Of course, it would be much easier and safer to produce a large number of ready-made isotope nuclei at the place where antimatter is obtained, and then transport them to the place of the experiment, but the problem is that such isotope nuclei are very short-lived, so they need to be "prepared" just before the very beginning of their further use.
“There is a task: to deliver antiprotons to the place where the nuclei of the isotopes we need will be produced. We're going to produce a whole billion antiproton cloud, cool it down to 4 degrees Celsius above absolute zero, and then transport it from Antiproton Decelerator to ISOLDE,”explained Alexander Obertelli, one of the antiProton Unstable Matter Annihilation (PUMA) project scientists.
At first glance, it might seem that 1 billion is a lot. But actually it is not. For example, the same gram of hydrogen contains 622 sextillion protons, which is a hundred trillion times more than the number of antiprotons that are going to be transported from place to place. But wait, we're talking about antimatter! About substance, or rather antimatter, a very dangerous substance capable of destroying all living things! Scientists are in a hurry to reassure: even if something happens and antiprotons annihilate, coming into contact with ordinary matter, then less than one joule will be released, which is enough to lift the weight of, say, an apple to a height of twenty centimeters. Therefore, in this case, the main problem is rather to ensure the protection of the antimatter itself, as well as the carriers from secondary radiation.
Scientists are going to create a special trap in which antimatter will be transported by 2022. If it shows its effectiveness, then in the future, scientists may begin to transport antimatter between laboratories even more distant from each other.
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“From a technical point of view, this is a very difficult project. Nevertheless, taking into account the development of modern technologies, it is still feasible,”commented the physicist Chloe Malbruno.
Nikolay Khizhnyak