For the first time ever, scientists have built a container capable of transporting antimatter out of the laboratory. The unique feat was achieved by a team of researchers at CERN earlier this month and could help speed up the study of antimatter, essential to understanding how the universe works..
The achievement, detailed in a paper titled Proton transport from the antimatter factory of CERN, published in the journal Nature, mentions that a two-metre-long containment device was built and successfully driven four kilometres before returning it to the lab.
"We transferred the trapped protons from our experimental area at the AMF (antimatter factory) onto a truck and transported them across the Meyrin site of CERN," the researchers explained.
Notably, antimatter requires special conditions and a containment device to be transported as it disappears upon contact with regular matter, even dust particles. For the container, scientists used magnetic traps to isolate antimatter, which requires substantial electricity and a controlled environment.
"Within our 4-h transport campaign, the persistent superconducting magnet system operated autonomously, based on battery supplies, cryopumping and cooling by a liquid helium (LHe) reservoir," the paper stated.
The demonstration paves the way for antimatter to be transported to laboratories throughout the continent via public road networks. The Heinrich Heine University Dusseldorf, located in Germany, approximately 800 kilometres away, is expected to be the first recipient of antimatter from CERN.
"We thereby confirm the feasibility of transferring particles into low-noise laboratories in the vicinity of the AMF and of using a power generator on the truck to reach laboratories throughout Europe," the paper stated.
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What is antimatter and how much does it cost?
The observable universe is made up of matter. However, for every type of matter particle, there exists an antimatter version that is exactly the same except that it has the opposite electrical charge. For example, while protons have a positive charge, antiprotons have a negative charge.
In 1999, NASA scientists GR Schmidt, Harold Gerrish and JJ Martin estimated that the price of antimatter was $62.5 trillion, or $1.75 quadrillion an ounce, based on the energy involved and the estimated production capacity.
