All of you who have read Angels and Demons by Dan Brown or seen the movie knew how amazing antimatter story can get. When the bigbang occurred about 13.7 billion years ago , an equal amount of matter and antimatter is released in the universe. However it appears all of the antimatter vanished in the thin air because all we see around us is matter.
June 5, 2011 handout from CERN shows untrapped anti-hydrogen atoms annihilating on the inner surface of the ALPHA trap.[source :CERN/AFP/Getty Images]
Carl andreson in 1923 first identified the antipartical of electron , "positron". It has positive charge instead of negative charge.Subsequently in 1955 University of California's scientists identified antineutron and antiproton . Matter and antimatter reacts violently with each other and release of huge amount of energy occurs. This energy is so great and contain destructive power that only half a gram can create more devastation caused by atomic bomb dropped by USA on Japan. This unstability make it very difficult to study the antimatter . But recently scientists are able to produce the antimatter only for a fraction of second under a controlled environment . Antimatter however reacted with matter and destroyed it self.
At CERN the "Alpha antimatter experiment" team able to produce and successfully store the antimatter up to 16 minutes and 40 seconds. Previously this team was also able to create the anti-hydrogen and keep it for two - tenths of a second. Their current achievement is 5000 times increase in storage time. Fujiwara and colleagues created anti-hydrogen while maintaing the very low temperature of tiny steel cylinder , about -269 degree Centigrade.which is just 4 degree above the absolute zero. A powerful magnetic field helps in not allowing the antimatter to escape. This is the most exiting and notable achievement by CERN scientists and engineers .
