Boffins: Antimatter comes from black holes, neutron stars

Hang on...

Forgetting, for the moment, the difficulties of storing anti-matter if you get your hands on it (while positrons and anti-protons are capable of being stored in magnetic fields, if you combine one of each to form an atom of anti-hydrogen, suddenly it's magnetically neutral and can't be restrained so easily), are they saying that a BLACK HOLE, with gravity so MASSIVE that it can pull in EVERYTHING, including LIGHT, is actually *releasing* anti-matter?

Seriously?

Is that saying that anti-matter is not affected by gravity, or, even cooler, it's affected in the opposite way to normal matter?

Seriously?

Interstellar travel, Only for Billy nomates

OK, so you might get to other places using antimatter before you die. But when you get back your spouse, kids and mates will be long dead. Not my idea of a happy life.

ow! ow! ow!

"DOCTOR!!! My brain hurts..."

Is it just me or does it seem like the whole "dark matter" biz was dreamed up because no "reputable scientist" wanted to admit they hadn't a clue?

And as for black holes, I thought that NOTHING, not even LIGHT, could escape a black hole. Did science change when I wasn't looking? It is commonly accepted that there is a "supermassive" black hole (roughly several million times Solar mass) at the center of our galaxy and that the ludicrous gravitational pull from same is largely what holds the galaxy together as a spinning mass.

Further out on the tangent: how many gazillions of years before the black holes gobble up all matter in the universe? And is that where my keys went?

Nomination: Pulitzer Prize for Purple Prose.

Any rag that can have scientists "pooh pooh"-ing each other; and not "expecting so much unexpectedness"; in the same article, should get a Pulitzer Prize. Or a silver poopa-scoop. Perhaps you could explain which one you'd prefer..

Spooky

Black holes have long been thought to be a source of antimatter in the form of Hawking Radiation. The theory goes that empty space is fizzing with pairs of virtual particles that ordinarily pop into existence and subsequently vanish again after a fleeting instant. If such a pair span a black hole's event horizon, however, one of the virtual particles will be gobbled up by the immense gravity. The other is at liberty to be whisked away by a magnetic field, and there's a pretty good chance that it will be an anti-particle.

If you really want to give a physicist a headache, ask him why our universe is overwhelmingly dominated by matter rather than by anti-matter. On a related note, a spinning cobalt nucleus will spontaneously spit out an electron (beta decay), but it's always in the same direction with respect to the spin. Spooky. God definitely favours one hand over the other in our universe, but how does he know which one is which? After all, there's no external reference. Definitely spooky.

How it gets away from huge gravitational fields...

Perhaps I'm just being stupid... but, why is this a mystery?

It's been long thought that anti-matter would show anti-gravity - isn't the fact that it seems to escape such huge fields actually proof of that?

It could also be the reason WHY we see it in such large quantities - if matter/anti-matter is oalescing from the energy within (theory goes that when energy coalesces it forms equal quantities of matter and anti-matter) the only thing that will escape to be 'seen' is that able to escape the gravitational field.... i.e. something with anti-gravity, anti-matter...

I want to be first!

So then this is about "snatching" ?!? P.H.? angle?

Erm

since electrons used to make an article like this are negativle charged, and anti-electrons are positivley charged... Does this mean I we built a register out of anti matter it wouldnt be cynnical about everything?

If that's the case, I dont want to know!!!

Antigravity?

Perhaps this is an oversimplification of the conundrum, but is it not possible that antimatter escapes high gravity environments because it has inverse properties to normal matter that would be drawn to black holes? Simply put, if gravity attracts normal matter would not antigravity be required to attract antimatter?

Antimatter =/= antigravity

As I understand it, antimatter still has positive mass, so it is affected by gravity in exactly the same way as normal matter.

Nothing can escape from a black hole from within the event horizon - the boundary where the escape velocity required equals the speed of light. However, virtual particle pairs leading to Hawking radiation form at this boundary, so there would be no theoretical problem with one of the pair (which will be half antiparticles) being catapulted out of the region by electromagnetic effects (similar to the way particles are handled in particle accelerators).

Do the EM fields around black holes preferentially fire out positively charged particles? If so, it would explain the massive amount of positrons out there.

@ Natalie Gritpants

"when you get back your spouse, kids and mates will be long dead. Not my idea of a happy life."

Take the kids and mates with you. Leave the wife behind to handle your financial affairs. One way or another, it's a happy return.

The leather one with the anti-tweed elbow patches, thanks.

No, it isn't anti-gravity. It's just quantum gravity.

Please, can we call time on the amateur physicists so confidently sharing their complete misapprehensions?

@Jamie and others: No, it hasn't "been long thought that anti-matter would show anti-gravity". Anti-matter particles have reversed spin, charge, and other properties compared to their matter partner particle, but they have positive mass and respond to gravity in exactly the same.

As to how they escape Black Holes: the Black Hole is only inescapable to a classical approximation, i.e. Einsteinian gravity. When you take into account quantum effects, particles can escape from very close to the horizon. Particle/anti-particle pairs spontaneously appear then mutually annihilate in empty space all the time (go look up the Heisenberg uncertainty principle for why). If they happen to appear very close to the horizon of the Black Hole, one can fall in while the partner shoots off into space before they can annihilate again, creating the appearance that the Black Hole is emitting particles (both anti-matter and matter).

*sigh* I guess this is what happens when people learn their physics from Star Trek...

@Mike Bell

Nothing spooky at all.

"...how does he know which one is which?" is like asking "Thermos bottles keep hot things hot, and cold things cold. How does the thermos know?"

Both are ill formed questions.

@Occam's razor - the new Grail?

Luther,

You make IT sound all so easy, which it would be whenever you can resolve the model of the infinitely large with the infinitely small for ITs Mutual Equilibrium. Money cannot buy it of course, but throwing money at IT allows you to bask in Reflected Glory .

Although don't be fooled into believing that "one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything" .... http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/OCCAMRAZ.html .... because one needs to be able explain everything surely.

Do that and you have a priceless Gift which Generates AI Life of ITs Own ...just as you inferred/shared. ...... although you do sound somewhat bitter as if you have compromised yourself for filthy lucre rather than compromising filthy lucre for yourself.

Black holes emit things all the time

A black hole has a region (the famous event horizon) below which nothing can escape, but AT the event horizon the virtual particles of space, which consist of pairs of particles - one normal and one anti-mater - instead of recombining and neutalising each other can have one member swept into the black hole while the other, being just outside, can escape. This happens all the time and the idea that it does happen is actually what bought Stephen Hawkings his place at the top table. In fact, it is called "Hawking Radiation".

If there is some reason why the anti-particle is the one that escapes more often then that would make a black hole a net emitter of anti-matter.

BTW, the black hole pays the price for all of this and if starved of new material, will eventually evaporate as a result.

Well, that's what they tell me anyway.

Oh, and anti-matter has mass just like normal matter so it experiences gravity, not anti-gravity.

ignore it

"We expected something unexpected, but we did not expect this" This is redundant: "did not expect this" implies, actually demands, that "this" is unexpected. But the statement opened with "we expected something unexpected". So the statement reduces to "We expected something unexpected, but this is unexpected"! So I guess they got what they expected?

@Kevin Campbell & AC

Blacks holes suck in everything that crosses their event horizon (yes, even light) but, and this is really cool stuff worked out by "Mr Brainbox", Stephen Hawking, they expel energy.

The energy is known as Hawking radiation. Black holes are always expelling this stuff (they're not entirely sure what it is yet) and may actually evaporate.

It could be that the two are related - the radiation being emitted by the black hole is causing, or may actually, positrons.

Yup

"And as for black holes, I thought that NOTHING, not even LIGHT, could escape a black hole. Did science change when I wasn't looking? "

Yes, it did. A chap named Stephen Hawking was reponsible.

@adnim

Light has seen all the episodes of Star Trek many times and is belting around the Universe looking for new ones.

Simple when you think about it really.

@Anonymous Coward

"...how does he know which one is which?" is like asking "Thermos bottles keep hot things hot, and cold things cold. How does the thermos know?" Both are ill formed questions.

Absolutely not. Your question is a trivial concern over thermodynamics. My point is that we live in a chiral universe and nobody knows why left or right dominates at the weak nuclear force level, in a similar way that matter dominates over antimatter. Further, to say that something is left or right *always* requires some frame of reference (transmit a TV show to an alien civilisation for example and the only way they will show it the right way round is if the movie shows a known star field or something that violates charge-parity or the like). Since the universe only has itself as a frame of reference, the only thing you can say about "left" is that it is not "right".

More about CP Violation and problems of symmetry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cp_Violation

Spanish Inquisition missing...

"We expected something unexpected, but we did not expect this" is a contradiction in terms. If they did not expect what they got (2nd clause), it was unexpected and therefore expected (1st clause). But I was expecting a Spanish Inquisition pun... And an SI icon would be fitting...

OT re reentry from space: The parachutist was not in orbit. For the Space Shuttle to be in orbit around the Earth, it must be accelerated to something like 25000 km/hour (or miles/hour??). When it comes back down, it's hitting the atmosphere at something like this speed, which results in a lot of friction and heat. They can't come straight in, they have to skim the surface and bounce back a few times to get the speed down to where they can handle the friction... I saw a NASA guy heat up a tile with a blowtorch, then touch it with his hand - it wasn't even warm (I touched it too).

Static charge?

Since all black holes rotate and the interstellar medium has material in it (mostly hydrogen), is there a possibility that a static charge builds up around the black hole by simple friction? Would that account for -ve particles being sucked in in preference to +ve?

Hmmmm.

@ Several people on this thread....

@everything comes in twos:

Someone's been watching too much Red Dwarf again, haven't they?

"if black holes frow out more anti-gravity parts than gravity parts then do white holes do the opposit pull in anti-gravity particals and expel gravity particals as you might expect if equal and oposit in all things is scientificly true?."

Tsk Tsk.....

@ Mike Bell

"Further, to say that something is left or right *always* requires some frame of reference (transmit a TV show to an alien civilisation for example and the only way they will show it the right way round is if the movie shows a known star field or something that violates charge-parity or the like)."

Of course, making the assumption that the biology of the alien civilisations' viewing apparatus (eyes) is made up the same way as us, and can see the same wavelengths of light as us? With the level of biodiversity that we see within our own humble sphere, (and I'm thinking along the lines here that canines/felines see different wavelengths of light to humans, they can see movement of light on a TV screen, but not the definitive shapes (I'm sure I read that somewhere...)) who's to say that the aliens can even see what's being transmitted? Not that I'm booboo-ing your comment, just that sometimes assumptions can thow an idea so far off course.

Right, got that out of the way.

Where is the Paris Hilton angle?

IIRC

One of the Stephen Hawking books I read, explained the phenomenom of Hawking Radiation. If you apply a quantum approach to the analysis of gravitational effects close to a black hole's event horizon, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle states that nor the position nor the speed of a particle can be precisely determined. In the conditions of extreme gravitational warps close to a singularity (an area where the laws of physics are rather unpredictable), a particle MAY exceed the speed of light limit for a very short amount of time (just enough to allow it to escape). That breaking the light barrier implies that the particles travel BACK in time, is an expected outcome since all paths that approach a singularity end at singularity itself. Remember extreme gravity does funny things to the laws of physics. This could be complete bollocks of course, Hawking himself admitted that he wasn't sure this was the correct explanation and that a quantum theory of gravity has not been developed yet.

Anti-matter behaves EXACTLY like matter, follows gravitational warps (its attracted by gravity), is affected by electromagnetic fields, and is affected by the strong and weak nuclear forces to both radiate and form atoms. Negative energy, however, behaves in an opposite fashion than natural energy. Negative energy can be created by hermetically closing off a region between two perfectly flat plates, extracting ALL particles and cooling the whole system to absolute zero. Because the region between the two plates is hermetically sealed from the outside universe and it is at absolute zero, the net energy between the plates is zero. However because of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, the virtual particles that are created both between the plates and outside of them, create an energy deficit inside the plates. The virtual particle pressure outside the plates is greater that inside the plates which causes the system to have a negative energy state. Negative energy anti-gravitates but if you expose the fictional box, to the Earth's gravitational field, it will still fall down (the earth's field is still greater than the anti-gravity field). The above effect is called the Cassimir effect, and was theorized by Dutch physicist Hendrik Casimir and was used by Kip Thorne in the scientific basis for the movie, Contact. The effect has been experimentally tested and the Casimir force was detected.

British boffin, Paul Davies wrote about this in his book "How to Build a Time Machine".

This

Dark matter

Dark matter is this generation of astronomers' Vulcan and, like Vulcan, it explains the observed results very nicely and can't be detected. And like Vulcan, it can't be detected because ain't there. In a third parallel with Vulcan, I'd bet the real reason comes from relativity or some other modification to gravitational theory.

The theory of Anti-Matter

The properties of anti-matter are reversed, but NOT mass.

Eg: Electron: Spin: 1/2 Electric charge: -e Mass: Me

Positron: Spin:-1/2 Electric charge: +e Mass: Me

Properties such as Strangeness, Charm, Spin, Charge, Topness, Bottomness, are reversed but mass is always conserved.

This is why a Messon (Such as a Si Messon) A combination of a Charm - Anti-Charm quarks has a mass of 3.1GeV/C^2 (and not Zero).

Looking at Gravity from general relativity it is a curvature in spacetime by matter or energy which means particles follow Geodesics (trajectories) which are the shortest routes (Like straight lines in flat space) this means they're falling in space not transfering force like electromagnetic interactions (photons) between them.

And If you look at it Quantum Mechanically then the whole process involves gravitons, lets wait for them to confirm the existance of these before we start conjuring up anti-gravitons which would mean Messons don't exist.