Matter/Anti-matter

[actual]

How's about this - <br /><br />There is no matter/Antimatter asymmetry. The universe contains the same amount of antimatter and matter. Here's how.<br /><br />At the big bang, matter and anti matter were created in equal quantities. The idea is that all the antimatter and a large fraction of the matter anhilated each other very soon after, leaving the matter universe we think we observe. However, this requires actual collisions between matter and antimatter particles. <br /><br />The universe very soon after the big bang was not homogeneous. We know this because fluctuations on the quantum scale became locked in by inflation, and are observable today as the variation in the CMB. What if the relative density of matter and antimatter were not constant across the whole universe? Matter and antimatter would not be able to completely annihilate. In regions (like ours) where matter dominated, and it could be by only a tiny fraction of a percent, some matter would be left. Like wise, there would be regions where antimatter dominated. Globally the matter antimatter ratio is still 1. <br /><br />So, pockets of anti matter and matter exist, but they are spatially seperated. Inflation then locks this spatial seperation in. Collisions can't occur between matter and antimatter because the pockets are just too far away from each other for a large quantites of particles to cross the distances.<br /><br />So, the matter and antimatter are still here today. It's just that they're seperated by very large distances.<br /><br />Any comments?

 

[lukman]

It is a good possibility, will we be able to mine the antimatter?<br /><br />Similar thread:<br />http://uplink.space.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=askastronomer&Number=661808&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=0&fpart= <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[enigma10]

So. Somehow within the big bang, matter and antimatter were created and then pushed away from each other in little "blobs", that somhow, avoided any matter in front or behind or next to it, and then somehow was coccooned away from all other matter? <br /><br /> What force kept this in such a stable state? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <em>"<font color="#333399">An organism at war with itself is a doomed organism." - Carl Sagan</font></em> </div>

 

[robnissen]

I think his hypotheses might make sense, if at the instant of the big bang, there was hundreds? thousands? millions? billions? trillions? more matter/antimatter than now exists in the universe. Most of the matter/antimatter met and annihaled itself, but some small percentage, was clumped irregularly, such that it did not immediately annihilate, inflation then kicked in and the matter and anti-matter were inflated away to different parts of the universe. If the antimatter was inflated more than 13 billion light years away, we will never see it. This hypothesis does not seem completely implausible to me.

 

[yevaud]

Antimatter and CP "mirror-breaking" <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[dragon04]

<font color="yellow">So, the matter and antimatter are still here today. It's just that they're seperated by very large distances.</font><br /><br />What would cause that? Matter and anti-matter would still be gravitationally effected in the same manner.<br /><br />Matter and anti-matter share a commonality. They both have mass. And we know that regardless, their nature is not like that of electrical charge. Which is another impotrant thing to consider.<br /><br />In terms of the electromagnetic, matter and anti-matter should <b>attract</b> one another if anything.<br /><br />So there would be no electromagnetic reason for matter and anti-matter to be mutually repulsive.<br /><br />That leaves us with mass and gravity. Matter and anti-matter don't care about annihilation but rather are forced to observe the laws of gravitational attraction.<br /><br />Matter and anti-matter have equal energy states. In other words, an anti-proton is of the same mass as a proton and they don't particularly care whether they try to combine with their counterpart, only that if close enough, and not being influenced by sufficient outside forces (relative velocity) their masses will bring them together.<br /><br />If there were significant matter-antimatter reactions going on, we'd certainly be able to observe it. <br /><br />If matter and antimatter were symmetrical, how would they have escaped one another from the moment of the Big Bang to this very day?<br /><br />Both are equal yet opposite expressions of the same thing. There should be measurable titanic explosions going on all the time if the distribution was anything approaching symmetrical levels, I'd think.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <em>"2012.. Year of the Dragon!! Get on the Dragon Wagon!".</em> </div>

 

[Mee_n_Mac]

<font color="yellow"><i>"What would cause that? Matter and anti-matter would still be gravitationally effected in the same manner."</i></font><br /><br /><br />Today we have large clumps of matter which are separated due to the inflation and expansion of the universe. If the results of the High Z team are correct then parts of the universe are not only receeding from us but doing so at an increasing rate. This is despite the gravitational attraction between us and them. So why can't some of these other galaxies (or whole galaxies themselves) be made of anti-matter vs our locally common stuff ? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>-----------------------------------------------------</p><p><font color="#ff0000">Ask not what your Forum Software can do do on you,</font></p><p><font color="#ff0000">Ask it to, please for the love of all that's Holy, <strong>STOP</strong> !</font></p> </div>

 

[yevaud]

Yeah, but that anisotropy isn't the result of whether or not it's matter or anti-matter. It's a result of inhomogenieties in the expansion (shown clearly by the variations in the detected CMBR).<br /><br />So there's no motive force to seperate the two from each other in the manner suggested. Following this idea, what we'd see is clumps of matter and anti-matter <i>everywhere</i>, not seperated by vast distances, and therefore would also see the signatures of annihilation events on a scale that would make Quasars look tame by comparison. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[dragon04]

I would think that the matter-antimatter conflict was resolved on an order of microseconds or nanoseconds very early on. Okay maybe over a lazy weekend.<br /><br />They were up close and personal then.<br /><br />Bits of antimatter would have no particular affinity for other bits of antimatter. In other words, what leads you to believe that it's likely that there would be galaxy sized clumps of antimatter to begin with? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <em>"2012.. Year of the Dragon!! Get on the Dragon Wagon!".</em> </div>

 

[Mee_n_Mac]

<font color="yellow"><i>"Yeah, but that anisotropy isn't the result of whether or not it's matter or anti-matter. It's a result of inhomogenieties in the expansion (shown clearly by the variations in the detected CMBR). "</i></font><br /><br />I certainly don't have the knowledge to debate the nature of baryogenesis so let me ask what might be a silly question or 2. My understanding is that as the universe expanded and cooled, the quark plasma could finally settle down and condensce into matter. This was both conventional matter and anti-matter. For reasons you've mentioned previously, there seems to have been every so slightly more matter than anti-matter. Now my questions ...<br /><br />First, is the uneveness seem in the CMB a result of non-homogenious expansion or the result of non-homogenious matter distribution during the expansion ? As I ponder it, perhaps these are inseparable.<br /><br />Second, is there some theoretical understanding of why matter/anti-matter anhillation should be absolutely complete during the baryogenesis period ? And even harder ... one that I might understand ? <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> Could the generation of anti-baryons sufficently outpaced their annihilation in a few localized places that expansion could have separated them from normal matter. (which is just another way of restating my original thought) Does thermal equilibrium btw the 2 have to have been reached, outside of the interpretation of the CMB ?<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>-----------------------------------------------------</p><p><font color="#ff0000">Ask not what your Forum Software can do do on you,</font></p><p><font color="#ff0000">Ask it to, please for the love of all that's Holy, <strong>STOP</strong> !</font></p> </div>

 

[Mee_n_Mac]

<font color="yellow"><i>"Bits of antimatter would have no particular affinity for other bits of antimatter. In other words, what leads you to believe that it's likely that there would be galaxy sized clumps of antimatter to begin with? "</i></font><br /><br />Funny, you were answering when I was typing to respond to Yevaud. In response to above, I don't think it was at all likely, just wondering if it was even a possibility. All the matter we have now in the universe is the result of an incredibly small difference btw the production of matter over anti-matter (1 in 10 billion). How likely was that ? So my musings were along the lines of whether the expansion could outpace annihilation. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>-----------------------------------------------------</p><p><font color="#ff0000">Ask not what your Forum Software can do do on you,</font></p><p><font color="#ff0000">Ask it to, please for the love of all that's Holy, <strong>STOP</strong> !</font></p> </div>

 

[yevaud]

<i>First, is the uneveness seem in the CMB a result of non-homogenious expansion or the result of non-homogenious matter distribution during the expansion ? As I ponder it, perhaps these are inseparable.</i><br /><br />Certainly it isn't expected that the initial distribution of matter was uniform; it's hard to see how that would be possible. And this hares back off into Dark Matter as well, doesn't it? All of which appears to have some impact on the formation of Grand Structures.<br /><br /><i>Could the generation of anti-baryons sufficently outpaced their annihilation in a few localized places that expansion could have separated them from normal matter.</i><br /><br />I suppose it's statistically possible, sure. But the universe isn't static, and it's hard to see how normal matter wouldn't have annihilated with it since post-inflation. It's quite a long period of time, and the universe was so much smaller then (meaning collisions between the normal and anti-matter groupings were quite likely).<br /><br />Thermal equilibrium is a relative thing in this case. Even tiny differences in the CMBR would become, over vast periods of time, the inhomogeneous "texture" of the universe we see today.<br /><br />Remember, if a slight temperature difference occurred in one tiny region during the early inflationary period (when the universe was much smaller), and assuming a perfectly uniform expansion (perfectly ideal and hence not possible), even a small region would grow immense over billions of years. The anisotropy we view is no real surprise.<br /><br />Hope that answers your questions. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[vandivx]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>At the big bang, matter and anti matter were created in equal quantities. ... What if the relative density of matter and antimatter were not constant across the whole universe? Matter and antimatter would not be able to completely annihilate.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />the whole idea about 'creation in equal quantities' of particles and antiparticles rests on the idea that when a particle pops up, an antiparticle pops up in the same process which means the pair pops up in the same location which means there is (has to be) initial uniform homogeneous distribution of matter and antimatter<br /><br />point is you can't have particles poping up in one place and antiparticles poping up in another place some distance away, they are tied to the same location at their creation by definition (this is just rechewing steve's post in a way)<br /><br />if they should separate (unmix) subsequent to creation (during which initial time they would be perfect mixture due to above reasoning), you have a job on hand inventing mechanism how that would come about and keep it that way permanently since as steve has pointed out we don't observe gamma ray signatures of anihilation out there in cosmos<br /><br />I had a way of explaining where did the antiparticles go but I sort of forgot after years how that theory of mine went, must be getting old or what, let me try to start writing it out and I may recover the gist of it in the process<br /><br />the idea was that the antiparticles were created in exactly the same amount as particles (as they had to IMO) and they never separated (contrary to your post) or almost anihilated (as per conventional idea which postulates assymetric creation), instead my idea was that they never went anywhere and didn't 'anihilate out' but are here with us today (both particles and antiparticles of that original creation) only the antiparticles exist in a disguise so to speak (and there is no antimatter to be exac <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[saurc]

I read somewhere about a theory which states that space is made up of a sort of lattice of electrons and positrons bound together and so when the are very high energy rays passing through, they get dislodged and appear as a particle and an antiparticle, which of course immediately interact again. However in this way, matter and antimatter would be generated in equal amounts.<br /><br />Theoretically the excess 'matter' could just appear ( according to uncertainity and quantum theory ) but that is not particularly very probable. However we cannot tell how many improbable events occured before the big bang, because there would have been an infinite time to happen in. Therefore we just had to wait long enough for the right type of big bang with just enough matter left over more than antimatter to form our universe.<br /><br />You could see the link below..<br />http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/980305a.html<br /><br />Even astrophysicists don't seem to be sure

 

[vandivx]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>I read somewhere about a theory which states that space is made up of a sort of lattice of electrons and positrons bound together and so when the are very high energy rays passing through, they get dislodged and appear as a particle and an antiparticle, which of course immediately interact again. However in this way, matter and antimatter would be generated in equal amounts. <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />basically in all our experiments they are always created in equal amounts and in exactly the same location both of them, that was so since Anderson discovered them in early 1930s (I think) not long after Dirac got them in his equation<br /><br />Dirac talked something about electron sea, of holes in this sea... but he wasn't staunch or original enough to build on that idea (that would require something dangerously like ether idea and nobody could afford that in those days when Einstein's theories already took hold)<br /><br />IMO a 'lattice of electrons and positrons bound together' is nonsense, physicists only talk like that because they have no particle (and ether) models, so that something like that is their best effort at guessing the explanation of the fact that those particle/antiparticle pairs do pop up in space<br /><br />I regard that theory of assymetric creation (which is today's best theory out there) as simply made up, theorists nowadays are capable to make up explanation for almost anything by juggling some arcane ideas or making up new ones if need be and as you say big bang can mercifully cover many a frankeinstein theory under its impenetrable dark wings LOL<br /><br />"Even astrophysicists don't seem to be sure"<br />yep, nobody is sure when it comes to antimatter, even I with my idea can't be quite sure because it would require a particle specialist to see if it is feasible (any such out there eager to colaborate?)<br />BTW this is the first time I went public with this hypothesis of mine, you won't find <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>