Scientists in Geneva are taking some antiprotons out for a spin—a very delicate one—in a truck, in a never-tried-before test drive. If this so-called antimatter comes into contact with actual matter, even for a fraction of an instant, it will be annihilated in a quick flash of energy. So experts at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN, will, over the course of four hours Tuesday, take about 100 antiprotons on the road, reports the AP. The antiprotons are suspended in a vacuum inside a specially designed box and held in place by supercooled magnets. After easing them from the lab and onto the truck, the scientists are taking the antimatter on a half-hour drive to test how—if at all—the infinitesimal particles can be transported by road without seeping out. If all goes well, the antiprotons will be returned to the lab.
The hard part: Manipulating antimatter, like antiprotons, can be tricky business. As scientists understand the universe today, for every type particle that exists, there is a corresponding antiparticle, exactly matching the particle but with an opposite charge. If those opposites come into contact, they "annihilate" each other, setting off lots of energy, depending on the masses involved. Any bumps in the road on the test journey that aren't compensated for by the specially-designed box could spoil the whole exercise. Tuesday's practice is a first step toward making good on hopes to one day deliver CERN antiprotons to researchers at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, Germany, which is about eight hours away.
The antiprotons have been encased in a 2,200-pound box called a "transportable antiproton trap." It's compact enough to fit through ordinary laboratory doors and fit on a truck. It uses superconducting magnets cooled to -452 Fahrenheit that allow the antiprotons to remain suspended in a vacuum—not touching the inner walls, which are made of ... matter. The mass in Tuesday's test—slightly less than that of about 100 hydrogen atoms—is so small, experts say, that the worst possible outcome is the loss of the antiprotons. Even if they do touch matter, any release of energy would be unnoticeable, only an oscilloscope, which picks up electrical signals, would be able to detect it.
The trap, says CERN spokeswoman Sophie Tesauri, "is supposed to contain these antiprotons no matter what: if the truck stops, if it starts again, if it has to slam on the brakes — all that." Work remains: The trap can contain the antiprotons on its own for only about four hours, and the drive to Düsseldorf is twice that. Heinrich Heine University is seen as a better place than CERN to study antiprotons in-depth, because CERN—with all its other activities—generates a lot of magnetic interference that can skew the study of antimatter. But to get them there, those antiprotons will have to avoid touching anything on the way.
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