Hello! You are on the channel SBlog. Thanks for reading me! Every positive and kind comment)
The article is subjective and expresses the personal opinion of the author.
In modern physics, symmetries play an exceptional role. In quantum field theory, one of the most important symmetries is the so-called CPT symmetry, that is, symmetry with respect to the simultaneous replacement of all charges with opposite ones (C), the mirroring of space (P), and the reversal of the course of time (T). It is believed that only CPT-symmetric theories can be realized in nature. CPT symmetry implies many properties that particles and antiparticles must obey — for example, the equality of the masses of both. It is now interesting to see how more complex antiobjects, such as nuclei and atoms, behave rather than individual antiparticles. For example, CERN is actively investigating the spectroscopic properties of antihydrogen atoms.
CPT symmetry requires that these properties be exactly the same as that of the hydrogen atom. And an antihydrogen atom must fall in the Earth's gravitational field just like a hydrogen atom. And such an experiment is now being conducted at CERN. So CERN is not just the Large hadron Collider and the Higgs boson. This includes checking the fundamental symmetries of nature. To understand the world around us, these symmetries are even more important than the Higgs boson. So far, experiments have not been able to find any sign of a violation of the CPT symmetry.
Now let's look around and ask ourselves another natural question: why is there only matter around us? And where did antimatter disappear from our world? This problem is called the baryon asymmetry of the Universe. From the CPT theorem, it is naive to expect that after the Big Bang, there was an equal amount of matter and antimatter. This means that sooner or later there may be a global annihilation. And the lifeless Universe will rush only almost non-interacting single photons.
The mystery of baryon asymmetry has not yet been solved. Here can be offer several answers. For example, our Solar system is made of matter, and another star system far away from ours is made of antimatter. But then it is not clear why, instead of annihilation, matter and antimatter chose to separate in space? And astronomers do not observe stellar anti-worlds.
Another idea in 1967 was proposed by the Soviet academician, Nobel peace prize laureate Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov. He suggested that the baryon number — the one we talked about at the beginning of this paper — is violated, and further attracted the experimental fact of violation of the combined charge (C) and spatial (P) parity. Then unstable particles can decay somewhat differently than unstable antiparticles. And this is enough to eventually become a little more matter than antimatter. The rest of matter and antimatter have been annihilated. And all objects in the Universe consist of a small excess of matter. Now Sakharov's theory is supplemented and developed. But the basic idea remained unchanged.
On antimatter to the stars
It is no exaggeration to say that humanity dreams of flying to the stars. But even to the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, the light from the Sun is more than three years. The other stars are much farther away. Science fiction writers easily overcome such huge distances with the help of space-time tunnels, hyperdrives, the tenth dimension and other convenient, but, alas, only imaginary modes of transportation. In the real world, the spacecraft of the first star explorers will have to move in the same space with light and preferably at a speed close to the speed of light.
At the same time, we want such a spaceship to have the lowest possible mass. In this situation better fuels, than antimatter, for spaceship not find. Indeed, the entire mass of the fuel during annihilation passes into photons, which fly out of the nozzle at the speed of light. Photons should accelerate the spacecraft to very high speeds, which are fractions of the speed of light. That would make the trip to Proxima Centauri, say, thirty years. That's a lot, but the starfarers will make it back to Earth within a generation. What next? It can be like in the fiction of the 1950s and 1960s: spacemen, almost ageless because of the paradox of twins, and girls who are waiting for them on Earth in cryogenic chambers. Cosmic romance of the Golden sixties or the harsh everyday life of two thousand fifty? But it all started with an unusual Dirac equation, which inevitably had to have two solutions, and Carl Anderson, who guessed to insert a lead plate into Wilson's chamber.
And if your friends liked this small but interesting article, then support it, like it, subscribe to the channel, comment and just come back. Thank you for attention.