Signature of antimatter detected in lightning

[mharratsc]

This may not be the thread to start this little battle up, but since it got broached in the discussion, I'm gonna fire the first volley here:

Someone convince me that antimatter even exists.

o.O

Mike H.

[earls]

I think convincing anyone anti-matter doesn't exist would be a better starting point.

The same mass of common, established particles with an opposite charge. What's so difficult about this concept?

[StevenO]

I think convincing anyone anti-matter doesn't exist would be a better starting point.

The same mass of common, established particles with an opposite charge. What's so difficult about this concept?

Charge is a derived property of the base photon field. So I would say: the chirality of the photons comprising and emitted by matter. On earth it adheres to the right hand rule, but in other solar systems it could be the other way around. Could also explain retograde orbits.

[redeye]

Someone convince me that antimatter even exists.

I wondered about this in the past and the answer I got was:

PET scans

To conduct the scan, a short-lived radioactive tracer isotope, is injected into the living subject (usually into blood circulation). The tracer is chemically incorporated into a biologically active molecule. There is a waiting period while the active molecule becomes concentrated in tissues of interest; then the research subject or patient is placed in the imaging scanner. The molecule most commonly used for this purpose is fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG), a sugar, for which the waiting period is typically an hour. During the scan a record of tissue concentration is made as the tracer decays.


Schema of a PET acquisition processAs the radioisotope undergoes positron emission decay (also known as positive beta decay), it emits a positron, an antiparticle of the electron with opposite charge. After travelling up to a few millimeters the positron encounters an electron. The encounter annihilates them both, producing a pair of annihilation (gamma) photons moving in opposite directions. These are detected when they reach a scintillator in the scanning device, creating a burst of light which is detected by photomultiplier tubes or silicon avalanche photodiodes (Si APD). The technique depends on simultaneous or coincident detection of the pair of photons moving in approximately opposite direction (it would be exactly opposite in their center of mass frame, but the scanner has no way to know this, and so has a built-in slight direction-error tolerance). Photons that do not arrive in temporal "pairs" (i.e. within a timing-window of few nanoseconds) are ignored.

Not sure if this is relevant.

Cheers!

[earls]

A PET scan is exactly what I was going to link to as well. Probably the "most common" use of anti-matter. Then I was like, "wait a minute, anti-matter is more than well verified, so why the hell I would entertain the idea of convincing someone who denies the obvious without justification." Hence...

[mharratsc]

I guess what I am asking there, Earls, is exactly what is so obvious about it?

Here's the Wiki article for 'Antimatter':

Antimatter
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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For other uses, see Antimatter (disambiguation).
Antimatter
Overview
Annihilation
Devices
Particle accelerator
Penning trap

Antiparticles
Positron
Antiproton
Antineutron

Uses
Positron emission tomography
Fuel
Weaponry

Bodies
ALPHA Collaboration
ATHENA
ATRAP
CERN

People
Paul Dirac
Carl David Anderson
Andrei Sakharov
edit

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. For example, an antielectron (a positron, an electron with a positive charge) and an antiproton (a proton with a negative charge) could form an antihydrogen atom in the same way that an electron and a proton form a normal matter hydrogen atom. Furthermore, mixing matter and antimatter would lead to the annihilation of both in the same way that mixing antiparticles and particles does, thus giving rise to high-energy photons (gamma rays) or other particle–antiparticle pairs.

There is considerable speculation as to why the observable universe is apparently almost entirely matter, whether there exist other places that are almost entirely antimatter instead, and what might be possible if antimatter could be harnessed, but at this time the apparent asymmetry of matter and antimatter in the visible universe is one of the greatest unsolved problems in physics. The process by which this asymmetry between particles and antiparticles developed is called baryogenesis.

'Anti-particles' exist, but we don't see 'em... it sounds just like the arguments for 'Dark Matter,' if you ask me.

Are there NO other possibilities, other than 'matter/anti-matter annihilation' for why we might see the emission of a pair of gamma photons moving in opposite directions during the decay of a particular radioisotope? Has matter/anti-matter annihilation been observed? Is it only with electrons that we see this, and could it be a particular characteristic of electrons, or a rare 'extra' subatomic particle, rather than an 'anti-matter' counterpart of electrons? Do they really think that some galaxies out there might consist of 'anti-matter' stars, planets, dust, etc??

It sounds really far-fetched to me, and I'm beyond taking things at face value in the world of Physics these days...


Mike H.

[earls]

I await your experimental evidence and data supporting any and all other "possibilities."

I absolutely understand and agree with your skepticism regarding matters of cosmology, but anti-matter was predicted, experimentally observed and measured, and is utilized daily. The results obtained from their tools appear indicate experimentally supported "signature" ... versus?

What's mind boggling is that this report actually supports and helps bridge the gap between EU and "mainstream" yet many contributors to this thread seem to want to look for every other reason to go against the grain - for what gain?

"Mainstream" might have its fair share of close mindedness and ignorance, but the other side of the fence ain't so green either. The difference being that for all of mainstream's failures, they've had quite a few successes.

Ya know it's bad when I sound like one of them...

[Farsight]

This may not be the thread to start this little battle up, but since it got broached in the discussion, I'm gonna fire the first volley here: Someone convince me that antimatter even exists.

Have a google on antihydrogen, Mike. It's like hydrogen but consists of an antiproton and a positron instead of a proton and an electron. Mind you, it isn't really antimatter. People think it is, but it isn't. Here's why:

An electron is matter, and a positron is antimatter. Check out pair production on wikipedia to find out how they're produced from a +1022keV photon, as per the image Birkeland posted up:



OK, now consider a proton, and ask yourself whether the electron is more like the proton, or whether the positron is more like the proton. Look at the actual properties instead of sticking to convention. The electron is attracted to the positron, and to the proton too. So the answer you get is: the positron is more like the proton.

So, if the positron is antimatter, we ought to say that the proton is antimatter too, and that hydrogen is a combination of the two. Then we can say that antihydrogen is a different combination of the two, and stop worrying about all that missing antimatter, because it's just like enantiomers. Glucose comes in two chiralities, left handed and right handed, but only the latter is prevalent in our neck of the woods, and we don't wonder where all the l-glucose has gone. If you started with a mix of electrons positrons protons and antiprotons being created and destroyed, all you need is an initial imbalance and then you get a stability tip leaving just two prevailing. The easiest way to think of it is that it's something like a tennis match where the men are the matter and the women are the antimatter. People think it's the men against the women, but it isn't, it's a game of mixed doubles.

[earls]

You make valid points, however...

"Antimatter: Matter which is made up of antiparticles"

"Antiparticle: A subatomic particle, such as a positron, antiproton, or antineutron, having the same mass, average lifetime, spin, magnitude of magnetic moment, and magnitude of electric charge as the particle to which it corresponds but having the opposite sign of electric charge, opposite intrinsic parity, and opposite direction of magnetic moment."

Even if you wish to consider the proton anti-matter and the electron matter, why is the ratio to antimatter and matter so large?

[Farsight]

Because a stable particle with mass is just a photon that's "tied in a knot". If you perform pair produciton with a lowish-energy photon you only have enough energy to make a pair of particles akin to the trivial knot on the top left of the "knotplot" picture at http://www.knotplot.com/knot-theory/torus_xing.html. That corresponds to the electron. The positron is the same but with opposite chirality. If you have a higher-energy photon you can make a pair of particles akin to the trefoil knot which is the next one along. That corresponds to the proton, again the antiproton being the same but with opposite chirality. In theory you could keep going and make more massive particles, but they aren't around. The only stable particles with mass that we see are the electron and the proton, plus the positron and the antiproton.

In the early universe pair production would have been occurring to create both electron and positron pairs, and proton and antiproton pairs on an ongoing basis. We would also expect to see ongoing destruction of pairs via annihilation, along with destruction of individual particles that wander into a very hot high-pressure region. (See http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/40224 and note this: "Any such particles travelling through this plasma are halted in a short distance and become part of the soup. This quenches the characteristic signal used to detect their emission, effectively causing them to go missing". The latter allows for a chance imbalance to arise, which can then be magnified via a "stability tip". Create an electron and a positron today and the positron won't last long, because the imbalance is vast. Work back from this and the small initial imbalance wherein there are more electrons than positrons, means the electron has a better chance of surviving than the positron. Hence the imbalance grows. Ditto for protons and antiprotons. The initial quartet is not a stable situation, but one doublet is. Like I was saying, the electron is attracted to the proton because one's matter and the other's antimatter. They "want" to annihilate, but they can't because they're a different size and shape. And because they're a different size and shape, they have different masses too.

As for the mass ratios, I'm not sure.

[mharratsc]

I was pretty happy to find out that I wasn't the only one who doubted the description of positrons..

As physicist and Electric Universe advocate Wal Thornhill wrote: "In the Electric Universe model, there is no antimatter forming antiparticles. An electron and a positron are composed of the same charged sub-particles in different conformations. They come together to form a stable neutrino, emitting most of their orbital energies in the process. They do not annihilate each other. In that sense a neutrino embodies both the electron and the positron. It can have no antiparticle. The bookmakers would be wise not to bet on the Standard Model of particle physics."

I'm beginning to wonder if 'orbital energies' are just how many photons are held in the subatomic structure, and what amount of energy the photon contains, as well?

I'm beginning to feel like we don't know as much as we think we do regarding particle physics, and I bet there are going to be some fascinating discoveries going down the road this century!


Mike H.

[solrey]

Consider a plasmoid to be analogous to a "particle" like an electron. The corkscrew filament is "photon" energy. A perturbation causes it to knot up into a particle. Changes to it's energy state equal changes in the radiated beams. Imagine two of them "entangled"? Quantum entanglement anyone?
Scalability.

"photon"


"perturbation"


"particle"


"gamma ray" (particle overload)


Since the quantum spheroids have considerable spin (to say the least), they radiate a wave of energy in tune with their spin.
Think this is something like what Wal Thornhill is talking about?

[saul]

My apologies if this is already posted somewhere, but I didn't find it.
Anybody have a clue what's going on here?

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/ ... lightning/

I think it's not news that gammas are associated with lightning; so-called "TGFs" terrestrial gamma flashes.
But the peak at 511 keV is pretty wild. I'd love to hear some speculative handwaving here

Cheers-

[Anaconda]

Hi saul:

I appreciate your dropping by and asking a question (also appreciated your comment on the "ribbon" thread).

Yes, there are two other forum threads that address this issue (with plenty of free wheeling discussion ):

Signature of antimatter detected in lightning

http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpB ... f=3&t=2604

And:

TPOD: Gamma Gamma Hey

http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpB ... f=7&t=2632

I'm left thinking that gamma rays are a product of high energy reactions (nothing earth-shattering there), but nothing mysterious, either, rather, lightning generates gamma rays because of classical electromagnetic reactions.

Before matter -- anti-matter reactions are considered, classical high energy electrical dynamics need to be excluded as a possibility.

Is my understanding correct that laboratory plasma physics can account for production of gamma rays without recourse to matter -- anti-matter reactions?

If so, then that should be the direction of inquiry, rather than jumping to other exotic or even "sexy" explanations.

Determine the energy levels required to generate gamma rays in a plasma physics laboratory and that will give you a starting point for the energy required up in the clouds, taking into account the larger scales and electromagnetism's scale-independent dynamics.

And, of course, the electrical "pathways" that generate gamma rays in the laboratory possibly will be the same "pathways" that generate gamma rays in the clouds or is it above the clouds?

[jjohnson]

Is my understanding correct that laboratory plasma physics can account for production of gamma rays without recourse to matter -- anti-matter reactions?

Yes.

Peratt, in Physics of the Plasma Universe pp 34,35:

Gamma Ray and X ray. Most emissions at these wavelengths [infrared to gamma] is likely to be produced by electrons with energies in excess of 100 eV. We know [emphasis mine] that processes in magnetized plasmas, especially concerning electric fields aligned by magnetic fields, accelerate auroral electrons to keV energies. Similar plasma processes in solar flares produce energies of 1-10 GeV. Under cosmic conditions, relativistic double layers (Chapter 5) may generate even higher energies in magnetized cosmic plasmas.
Therefore we can assume with some confidence that the X rays and gamma rays we observe derive mainly from magnetized plasmas with energies in excess of 100 eV. Therefore, we call the picture we get from these wavelengths the high-energy plasma universe, or simply the plasma universe.
The energy densities of radiation in the gamma ray and X ray bands are approximately 10^(-18) J per cubic meter and 10^(-16) J per cubic meter respectively, and may arise from the total contribution of discrete sources (Section 6.7.5).

In none of Peratt's text is anti-matter discussed as a possible source of gamma radiation, nor is it needed to confirm the results of laboratory results which led to his observations, measurements and conclusions.

JJ