This seems like a straight enough question , but we in reality have no idea whether gravitation repels or attracts antimatter , all because we ’ve never actually managed to trap enough antimatter at once to test it . That may be about to change .
The big breakthrough get from CERN ’s Antihydrogen Laser Physics Apparatus ( or ALPHA ) , who just announced that they were able-bodied to immobilise 309 antihydrogen atoms for 1000 moment , or just under 17 minutes . That ’s an dead mammoth footstep up from the older record , which was only 38 antihydrogen atoms for just 172 millisecond . This is finally a big enough – and , more importantly , stable enough – slab of antimatter to screen just how it interacts with graveness .
The experimentation itself is simple enough , as the researcher will just to need to take a decent - sized lummox of antihydrogen , cool it down , and then honor how gravitational effects kick in . This has actually been try a crowd of time before , but these early tests always proved inconclusive because there just was n’t enough antimatter for gravity to overcome the far stronger atomic forces .
If all goes well , we ’ll know whether antimatter falls up or down by the oddment of the year . in person , I ’m root for the termination that makes our universe a little bit wackier .
arXivviaTechnology Review . paradigm of ALPHA via Berkeley Lab .
AntimatterCERNPhysicsScience
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