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Antiprotons can and do annihilate with neutrons, and likewise antineutrons can annihilate with protons, as discussed below. Reactions in which proton–antiproton annihilation produces as many as 9 mesons have been observed, while production of 13 mesons is theoretically possible.
Antimatter cannot be stored in a container made of ordinary matter because antimatter reacts with any matter it touches, annihilating itself and an equal amount of the container. Antimatter in the form of charged particles can be contained by a combination of electric and magnetic fields, in a device called a Penning trap .
The CPT theorem implies that the difference between the properties of a matter particle and those of its antimatter counterpart is completely described by C-inversion. Since this C-inversion does not affect gravitational mass, the CPT theorem predicts that the gravitational mass of antimatter is the same as that of ordinary matter. [5]
All the particles that make up the matter around us, such electrons and protons, have antimatter versions which are nearly identical, but with mirrored properties such as the opposite electric charge.
Recent theoretical framework for negative mass and repulsive gravity (antigravity) between matter and antimatter has been developed, and the theory is compatible with CPT theorem. [9] When antihydrogen comes into contact with ordinary matter, its constituents quickly annihilate. The positron annihilates with an electron to produce gamma rays.
An antimatter weapon is a theoretically possible device using antimatter as a power source, a propellant, or an explosive for a weapon.Antimatter weapons are currently too costly and unreliable to be viable in warfare, as producing antimatter is enormously expensive (estimated at US$6 billion for every 100 nanograms), the quantities of antimatter generated are very small, and current ...
As a result, it becomes much easier to produce particles such as neutrinos that interact only weakly with other matter. The heaviest particle pairs yet produced by electron–positron annihilation in particle accelerators are W + – W − pairs (mass 80.385 GeV/c 2 × 2). The heaviest single-charged particle is the Z boson (mass 91.188 GeV/c 2).
The Big Bang should have produced equal amounts of matter and antimatter. Since this does not seem to have been the case, it is likely some physical laws must have acted differently or did not exist for matter and/or antimatter. Several competing hypotheses exist to explain the imbalance of matter and antimatter that resulted in baryogenesis.