Successfully transported antimatter particles for the first time

The research team at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) on March 24 transported 92 antiprotons, a type of antimatter particle, in a specially designed vessel to hold these particles with a magnetic field. The bottle was placed on the back of a truck, completing a 30-minute trip around the organization’s campus on the Swiss-French border. The purpose of the experiment is to move antiparticles to a location free from disturbances, allowing for more precise study than conditions at the CERN antimatter factory where they are created.

In preparation for the world’s first antimatter transport attempt, the team captured and preserved 92 antiprotons in a portable cryogenic Penning trap. They are cooled to -268 degrees Celsius to reduce their speed, while a powerful vacuum system ensures they are not destroyed by impact with the remaining gas in the trap.

On March 24, dozens of CERN scientists gathered at the antimatter factory, tensely watching as an object that looked like a large filing cabinet, containing a trap weighing 850 kg, was carefully lifted by a crane and placed in the back of a truck.

The vehicle then began moving through the CERN campus. Many employees carried phones to record while the truck drove more than 8 km, reaching a maximum speed of 42 km/h. According to Marcus Jankowski, head of safety at CERN’s experimental physics department, this is the most dangerous part because it is subject to a lot of shaking.

Physicist Stefan Ulmer at Heinrich Heine University Dusseldorf (Germany), a member of the research team, drove closely and constantly kept an eye on the screen displaying important indicators of antimatter on the phone. When the trip ended, Ulmer said everything went smoothly, with the beads still in place.

“This is something humanity has never done before, it is historic,” Ulmer commented. Meanwhile, Tara Shears, a physicist at Liverpool University (UK), called the bus trip on March 24 a “technological miracle”.

With its new success, CERN aims to send antiprotons to a series of laboratories across Europe, starting with their dedicated laboratory in Dusseldorf (Germany), an 8-hour drive from the manufacturing plant.

Visible matter and its “twin” antimatter are thought to be almost identical, except for their opposite magnetic and electrical characteristics. Today, scientists still wonder why the universe contains so much more matter than antimatter, when the Big Bang should have created it in equal amounts. When antimatter comes into contact with matter, they annihilate each other, disappearing in a stream of high-energy particles. Therefore, preserving and transporting antimatter is a major challenge.

Antimatter is extremely expensive and difficult to produce. One gram is estimated to cost up to 62.5 trillion USD, this is the most expensive material on the planet. CERN is the only organization in the world that can create enough antimatter for use. Scientists can study antimatter to understand the deep mysteries of the universe, or use it to study other problems such as the structure of radionuclides.