The first trace of differences between matter and antimatter
The world wokól us is built mainlyównie of baryonów, particles consisting of three quarksów. Why is there no anti-baryonów, since just after the Big Bang matter and antimatter were created in exactly the same amounts? The LHCb experiment has just encountered the first trace of róThe differences between baryonic matter and antimatter.
In the data collected during the first phase of operation of the Large Hadron Collideróin the teamóLHCb experiment detects interesting asymmetry. The latest analysis of the decayóin baryonóin the beautiful Lambda b, particles six times more massive than the proton, suggests that they decay somewhat differently than their antimaterial counterparts
– If this result is confirmed, it will be possible to mówn about the observation of the first róThe difference between anti-baryons and baryons, i.e. this family of particles, whichóra in the dominant part forms our everyday world, informs the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IFJ PAN) in a press release sent to PAP.
Certain róThe differences between matter and antimatter have been observed before. In 1964 it was noticed that kaons – i.e. K mesons, particles built from an odd quark and a bottom antiquark or górne – Sometimes they decay slightly differently than anticaons. For this discovery, a Nobel Prize was awarded in 1980. In contrast, in recent years there have been reports of the detection of slightly more pronounced róIn the data collected during the first phase of operation of the Large Hadron Colliderów and antimesonóin the B róof a different type.
– Mesons are quark-antiquark pairs with krótic times of life, today appearing in the Universe in small quantities, and on Earth produced mainlyównie in high-energy collisions in gas pedals. Meanwhile, the matter with whichówhich make up the macroscopic objects of our world, form leptons (electrons belong to them) and in the dominant part baryons, i.e. conglomerates of three quarksów (a baryon is a proton, containing two g quarksórne and one bottom, and a neutron, composed of twoóch quarksóin the lower and one górny),” reports IFJ PAN.
The latest analysis of data from the LHCb experiment, published in the journal „Nature Physics”, a concerning decayóin Lambda b particles made of quarksów of the lower, górny and beautiful, so it is the first indication of theóa possible róThe latest analysis of the differences between baryonic matter and its antimaterial reflection.
– We cannot yet mówok about the discovery. Nevertheless, we are dealing with what appears to be an increasingly promising indication of theóThe observational data, captured in data from the first stage of the LHC gas pedal’s operation. However, the final confirmation or negation of the current result will have to wait for several months, until the analysis of the phase 2 data is officially completed, notes Dr. H. S. Marcin Kucharczyk of the IFJ PAN in Krakow, który this institute is one of the participantsóin the LHCb experiment.
Why some matter has managed to survive the annihilation era?
SupportóModern particle physics and cosmological models suggest that antimatter was created in exactly the same quantities as matter. There are spectacular consequences associated with this fact: when a particle encounters its antiparticle, annihilation, a process in which the antiparticle is highly likely to occurórym both particles completely transform into energy. The mechanism is extremely efficient. The amount of energy created in the annihilation of a kilogram of antimatter corresponds with a good approximation to the amount of energy released by burning a year’s production of motor gasoline from all Polish refineries.
As we read in the IFJ PAN communiqué, if in modernómodern space, if there were planets, stars or galaxies made of antimatter, they should emit large amounts of radiation with very characteristic energies. It would be formed by unavoidable interactions with matter of the opposite type, leading to annihilation. Meanwhile, astronomers observe annihilation radiation only in places and in residual amounts, brilliantly explained by physical phenomena, które and today are responsible for the formation of small amounts of antimatter.
– This raises a fundamentally important question: if matter and antimatter originally filled the Universe in exactly equal amounts, why haven’t they completely disappeared? Why a small fraction of matter managed to survive the era of annihilation? – reads the message sent.
In the living world, great extinctions, leading to the extinction of speciesów, last for tens and hundreds of thousands of years. Meanwhile, all indications are that antimatter annihilating with matter disappeared from our universe fractions of seconds after the Big Bang. For every few billionóin particles of matter this gigantic cataclysm survived only one. If an annihilation of similar magnitude were to affect the human species, only one human would be left alive in seconds out of all the people on Earth.