Antiproton
Encyclopedia
The antiproton is the antiparticle
of the proton
. Antiprotons are stable, but they are typically short-lived since any collision with a proton will cause both particles to be annihilated
in a burst of energy.
The existence of the antiproton with −1 electric charge, opposite to the +1 electric charge of the proton, was predicted by Paul Dirac
in his 1933 Nobel Prize lecture. Dirac received the Nobel Prize for his previous 1928 publication of his Dirac Equation that predicted the existence of positive and negatve solutions to the Energy Equation (
) of Einstein and the existence of the positron
, the antimatter analog to the electron, with positive charge and opposite spin.
The antiproton was experimentally confirmed in 1955 by University of California, Berkeley
physicist
s Emilio Segrè and Owen Chamberlain
, for which they were awarded the 1959 Nobel Prize in Physics
. An antiproton consists of two up antiquark and one down antiquark . The properties of the antiproton that have been measured all match the corresponding properties of the proton, with the exception that the antiproton has opposite electric charge and magnetic moment than the proton. The question of how matter is different from antimatter remains an open problem, in order to explain how our universe survived the Big Bang
and why so little antimatter
exists today.
s for over 25 years, first by balloon-borne experiments and more recently by satellite-based detectors. The standard picture for their presence in cosmic rays is that they are produced in collisions of cosmic ray proton
s with nuclei in the interstellar medium
, via the reaction, where A represents a nucleus:
+ A → + ++ A
The secondary antiprotons then propagate through the galaxy
, confined by the galactic magnetic field
s. Their energy spectrum is modified by collisions with other atoms in the interstellar medium, and antiprotons can also be lost by "leaking out" of the galaxy.
The antiproton cosmic ray energy spectrum is now measured reliably and is consistent with this standard picture of antiproton production by cosmic ray collisions. This sets upper limits on the number of antiprotons that could be produced in exotic ways, such as from annihilation of supersymmetric
dark matter
particles in the galaxy or from the evaporation
of primordial black hole
s. This also provides a lower limit on the antiproton lifetime of about 1-10 million years. Since the galactic storage time of antiprotons is about 10 million years, an intrinsic decay lifetime would modify the galactic residence time and distort the spectrum of cosmic ray antiprotons. This is significantly more stringent than the best laboratory measurements of the antiproton lifetime:
The magnitude of properties of the antiproton are predicted by CPT symmetry
to be exactly related to those of the proton. In particular, CPT symmetry predicts the mass and lifetime of the antiproton to be the same as those of the proton, and the electric charge and magnetic moment of the antiproton to be opposite in sign and equal in magnitude to those of the proton. CPT symmetry is a basic consequence of quantum field theory
and no violations of it have ever been detected.
for collider physics operations in the Tevatron
, where they are collided with protons. The use of antiprotons allows for a higher average energy of collisions between quark
s and antiquarks than would be possible in proton-proton collisions. This is because the valence quarks in the proton, and the valence antiquarks in the antiproton, tend to carry the largest fraction of the proton or antiproton's momentum
.
Their formation requires energy equivalent to a temperature of 10 trillion K
(1013 K) and this does not tend to happen naturally. However, at CERN
, protons are accelerated in the Proton Synchrotron
to an energy of 26 G
eV, and then smashed into an iridium
rod. The protons bounce off the iridium nuclei with enough energy for matter to be created
. A range of particles and antiparticles are formed, and the antiprotons are separated off using magnets in vacuum
.
In July 2011, the ASACUSA experiment at CERN determined the mass of the antiproton to be times more massive than an electron
. This is the same as the mass of a proton, within the level of certainty of the experiment.
Antiprotons have been shown within laboratory experiments to have the potential to treat certain cancers, in a similar method currently used for ion (proton) therapy. The primary difference between antiproton therapy and proton therapy is that following ion energy deposition the antiproton annihilates depositing additional energy in the cancerous region.
Antiparticle
Corresponding to most kinds of particles, there is an associated antiparticle with the same mass and opposite electric charge. For example, the antiparticle of the electron is the positively charged antielectron, or positron, which is produced naturally in certain types of radioactive decay.The...
of the proton
Proton
The proton is a subatomic particle with the symbol or and a positive electric charge of 1 elementary charge. One or more protons are present in the nucleus of each atom, along with neutrons. The number of protons in each atom is its atomic number....
. Antiprotons are stable, but they are typically short-lived since any collision with a proton will cause both particles to be annihilated
Annihilation
Annihilation is defined as "total destruction" or "complete obliteration" of an object; having its root in the Latin nihil . A literal translation is "to make into nothing"....
in a burst of energy.
The existence of the antiproton with −1 electric charge, opposite to the +1 electric charge of the proton, was predicted by Paul Dirac
Paul Dirac
Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac, OM, FRS was an English theoretical physicist who made fundamental contributions to the early development of both quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics...
in his 1933 Nobel Prize lecture. Dirac received the Nobel Prize for his previous 1928 publication of his Dirac Equation that predicted the existence of positive and negatve solutions to the Energy Equation (
) of Einstein and the existence of the positronPositron
The positron or antielectron is the antiparticle or the antimatter counterpart of the electron. The positron has an electric charge of +1e, a spin of ½, and has the same mass as an electron...
, the antimatter analog to the electron, with positive charge and opposite spin.
The antiproton was experimentally confirmed in 1955 by University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
s Emilio Segrè and Owen Chamberlain
Owen Chamberlain
Owen Chamberlain was an American physicist, and Nobel laureate in physics for his discovery, with collaborator Emilio Segrè, of antiprotons, a sub-atomic antiparticle.-Biography:...
, for which they were awarded the 1959 Nobel Prize in Physics
Nobel Prize in Physics
The Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded once a year by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895 and awarded since 1901; the others are the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and...
. An antiproton consists of two up antiquark and one down antiquark . The properties of the antiproton that have been measured all match the corresponding properties of the proton, with the exception that the antiproton has opposite electric charge and magnetic moment than the proton. The question of how matter is different from antimatter remains an open problem, in order to explain how our universe survived the Big Bang
Big Bang
The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model that explains the early development of the Universe. According to the Big Bang theory, the Universe was once in an extremely hot and dense state which expanded rapidly. This rapid expansion caused the young Universe to cool and resulted in...
and why so little antimatter
Antimatter
In particle physics, antimatter is the extension of the concept of the antiparticle to matter, where antimatter is composed of antiparticles in the same way that normal matter is composed of particles...
exists today.
Occurrence in nature
Antiprotons have been detected in cosmic rayCosmic ray
Cosmic rays are energetic charged subatomic particles, originating from outer space. They may produce secondary particles that penetrate the Earth's atmosphere and surface. The term ray is historical as cosmic rays were thought to be electromagnetic radiation...
s for over 25 years, first by balloon-borne experiments and more recently by satellite-based detectors. The standard picture for their presence in cosmic rays is that they are produced in collisions of cosmic ray proton
Proton
The proton is a subatomic particle with the symbol or and a positive electric charge of 1 elementary charge. One or more protons are present in the nucleus of each atom, along with neutrons. The number of protons in each atom is its atomic number....
s with nuclei in the interstellar medium
Interstellar medium
In astronomy, the interstellar medium is the matter that exists in the space between the star systems in a galaxy. This matter includes gas in ionic, atomic, and molecular form, dust, and cosmic rays. It fills interstellar space and blends smoothly into the surrounding intergalactic space...
, via the reaction, where A represents a nucleus:
+ A → + ++ A
The secondary antiprotons then propagate through the galaxy
Galaxy
A galaxy is a massive, gravitationally bound system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and dust, and an important but poorly understood component tentatively dubbed dark matter. The word galaxy is derived from the Greek galaxias , literally "milky", a...
, confined by the galactic magnetic field
Magnetic field
A magnetic field is a mathematical description of the magnetic influence of electric currents and magnetic materials. The magnetic field at any given point is specified by both a direction and a magnitude ; as such it is a vector field.Technically, a magnetic field is a pseudo vector;...
s. Their energy spectrum is modified by collisions with other atoms in the interstellar medium, and antiprotons can also be lost by "leaking out" of the galaxy.
The antiproton cosmic ray energy spectrum is now measured reliably and is consistent with this standard picture of antiproton production by cosmic ray collisions. This sets upper limits on the number of antiprotons that could be produced in exotic ways, such as from annihilation of supersymmetric
Supersymmetry
In particle physics, supersymmetry is a symmetry that relates elementary particles of one spin to other particles that differ by half a unit of spin and are known as superpartners...
dark matter
Dark matter
In astronomy and cosmology, dark matter is matter that neither emits nor scatters light or other electromagnetic radiation, and so cannot be directly detected via optical or radio astronomy...
particles in the galaxy or from the evaporation
Hawking radiation
Hawking radiation is a thermal radiation with a black body spectrum predicted to be emitted by black holes due to quantum effects. It is named after the physicist Stephen Hawking, who provided a theoretical argument for its existence in 1974, and sometimes also after the physicist Jacob Bekenstein...
of primordial black hole
Primordial black hole
A primordial black hole is a hypothetical type of black hole that is formed not by the gravitational collapse of a large star but by the extreme density of matter present during the universe's early expansion....
s. This also provides a lower limit on the antiproton lifetime of about 1-10 million years. Since the galactic storage time of antiprotons is about 10 million years, an intrinsic decay lifetime would modify the galactic residence time and distort the spectrum of cosmic ray antiprotons. This is significantly more stringent than the best laboratory measurements of the antiproton lifetime:
- LEARLearLear or Leir can refer to:* Leir of Britain, a legendary king of the Britons* King Leir, an anonymous play based on the legend of Leir of Britain, published in 1605...
collaboration at CERNCERNThe European Organization for Nuclear Research , known as CERN , is an international organization whose purpose is to operate the world's largest particle physics laboratory, which is situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border...
: - AntihydrogenAntihydrogenAntihydrogen is the antimatter counterpart of hydrogen. Whereas the common hydrogen atom is composed of an electron and proton, the antihydrogen atom is made up of a positron and antiproton...
Penning trapPenning trapPenning traps are devices for the storage of charged particles using a homogeneous static magnetic field and a spatially inhomogeneous static electric field. This kind of trap is particularly well suited to precision measurements of properties of ions and stable subatomic particles which have...
of Gabrielse et al.: - APEX collaboration at FermilabFermilabFermi National Accelerator Laboratory , located just outside Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, is a US Department of Energy national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle physics...
: for → + anything - APEX collaboration at Fermilab: for → +
The magnitude of properties of the antiproton are predicted by CPT symmetry
CPT symmetry
CPT symmetry is a fundamental symmetry of physical laws under transformations that involve the inversions of charge, parity, and time simultaneously.-History:...
to be exactly related to those of the proton. In particular, CPT symmetry predicts the mass and lifetime of the antiproton to be the same as those of the proton, and the electric charge and magnetic moment of the antiproton to be opposite in sign and equal in magnitude to those of the proton. CPT symmetry is a basic consequence of quantum field theory
Quantum field theory
Quantum field theory provides a theoretical framework for constructing quantum mechanical models of systems classically parametrized by an infinite number of dynamical degrees of freedom, that is, fields and many-body systems. It is the natural and quantitative language of particle physics and...
and no violations of it have ever been detected.
List of recent antiproton cosmic ray detection experiments
- BESSBESSBESS is a particle physics experiment carried by a balloon. BESS stands for Balloon-borne Experiment with Superconducting Spectrometer...
: balloon-borne experiment, flown in 1993, 1995, 1997, 2000, 2002, 2004 (Polar-I) and 2007 (Polar-II). - CAPRICE: balloon-borne experiment, flown in 1994 and 1998.
- HEAT: balloon-borne experiment, flown in 2000.
- AMSAlpha Magnetic SpectrometerThe Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, also designated AMS-02, is a particle physics experiment module that is mounted on the International Space Station. It is designed to search for various types of unusual matter by measuring cosmic rays. Its experiments will help researchers study the formation of...
: space-based experiment, prototype flown on the space shuttleSpace ShuttleThe Space Shuttle was a manned orbital rocket and spacecraft system operated by NASA on 135 missions from 1981 to 2011. The system combined rocket launch, orbital spacecraft, and re-entry spaceplane with modular add-ons...
in 1998, intended for the International Space StationInternational Space StationThe International Space Station is a habitable, artificial satellite in low Earth orbit. The ISS follows the Salyut, Almaz, Cosmos, Skylab, and Mir space stations, as the 11th space station launched, not including the Genesis I and II prototypes...
, launched May 2011. - PAMELA: satellite experiment to detect cosmic rays and antimatter from space, launched June 2006. Recent report discovered 28 antiprotons in the South Atlantic AnomalySouth Atlantic AnomalyThe South Atlantic Anomaly is an area where the Earth's inner Van Allen radiation belt comes closest to the Earth's surface. This leads to an increased flux of energetic particles in this region and exposes orbiting satellites to higher than usual levels of radiation...
.
Modern experiments and applications
Antiprotons are routinely produced at FermilabFermilab
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory , located just outside Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, is a US Department of Energy national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle physics...
for collider physics operations in the Tevatron
Tevatron
The Tevatron is a circular particle accelerator in the United States, at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory , just east of Batavia, Illinois, and is the second highest energy particle collider in the world after the Large Hadron Collider...
, where they are collided with protons. The use of antiprotons allows for a higher average energy of collisions between quark
Quark
A quark is an elementary particle and a fundamental constituent of matter. Quarks combine to form composite particles called hadrons, the most stable of which are protons and neutrons, the components of atomic nuclei. Due to a phenomenon known as color confinement, quarks are never directly...
s and antiquarks than would be possible in proton-proton collisions. This is because the valence quarks in the proton, and the valence antiquarks in the antiproton, tend to carry the largest fraction of the proton or antiproton's momentum
Parton (particle physics)
In particle physics, the parton model was proposed by Richard Feynman in 1969 as a way to analyze high-energy hadron collisions. It was later recognized that partons describe the same objects now more commonly referred to as quarks and gluons...
.
Their formation requires energy equivalent to a temperature of 10 trillion K
Kelvin
The kelvin is a unit of measurement for temperature. It is one of the seven base units in the International System of Units and is assigned the unit symbol K. The Kelvin scale is an absolute, thermodynamic temperature scale using as its null point absolute zero, the temperature at which all...
(1013 K) and this does not tend to happen naturally. However, at CERN
CERN
The European Organization for Nuclear Research , known as CERN , is an international organization whose purpose is to operate the world's largest particle physics laboratory, which is situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border...
, protons are accelerated in the Proton Synchrotron
Synchrotron
A synchrotron is a particular type of cyclic particle accelerator in which the magnetic field and the electric field are carefully synchronised with the travelling particle beam. The proton synchrotron was originally conceived by Sir Marcus Oliphant...
to an energy of 26 G
Giga
Giga is a unit prefix in the metric system denoting a factor of billion . It has the symbol G.Giga is derived from the Greek γίγας, meaning 'giant'...
eV, and then smashed into an iridium
Iridium
Iridium is the chemical element with atomic number 77, and is represented by the symbol Ir. A very hard, brittle, silvery-white transition metal of the platinum family, iridium is the second-densest element and is the most corrosion-resistant metal, even at temperatures as high as 2000 °C...
rod. The protons bounce off the iridium nuclei with enough energy for matter to be created
Mass-energy equivalence
In physics, mass–energy equivalence is the concept that the mass of a body is a measure of its energy content. In this concept, mass is a property of all energy, and energy is a property of all mass, and the two properties are connected by a constant...
. A range of particles and antiparticles are formed, and the antiprotons are separated off using magnets in vacuum
Vacuum
In everyday usage, vacuum is a volume of space that is essentially empty of matter, such that its gaseous pressure is much less than atmospheric pressure. The word comes from the Latin term for "empty". A perfect vacuum would be one with no particles in it at all, which is impossible to achieve in...
.
In July 2011, the ASACUSA experiment at CERN determined the mass of the antiproton to be times more massive than an electron
Electron
The electron is a subatomic particle with a negative elementary electric charge. It has no known components or substructure; in other words, it is generally thought to be an elementary particle. An electron has a mass that is approximately 1/1836 that of the proton...
. This is the same as the mass of a proton, within the level of certainty of the experiment.
Antiprotons have been shown within laboratory experiments to have the potential to treat certain cancers, in a similar method currently used for ion (proton) therapy. The primary difference between antiproton therapy and proton therapy is that following ion energy deposition the antiproton annihilates depositing additional energy in the cancerous region.
See also
- AntimatterAntimatterIn particle physics, antimatter is the extension of the concept of the antiparticle to matter, where antimatter is composed of antiparticles in the same way that normal matter is composed of particles...
- AntineutronAntineutronThe antineutron is the antiparticle of the neutron with symbol . It differs from the neutron only in that some of its properties have equal magnitude but opposite sign. It has the same mass as the neutron, and no net electric charge, but has opposite baryon number...
- PositronPositronThe positron or antielectron is the antiparticle or the antimatter counterpart of the electron. The positron has an electric charge of +1e, a spin of ½, and has the same mass as an electron...
- AntihydrogenAntihydrogenAntihydrogen is the antimatter counterpart of hydrogen. Whereas the common hydrogen atom is composed of an electron and proton, the antihydrogen atom is made up of a positron and antiproton...
- Antiprotonic heliumAntiprotonic heliumAntiprotonic helium is a three-body atom composed of an antiproton and an electron orbiting around a helium nucleus. It is thus made partly of matter, and partly of antimatter. The atom is electrically neutral, since both electrons and antiprotons have a charge of -1, whereas helium nuclei have a...
- List of particles