Isamar Alemán Sánchez: The Two Faces of Antimatter

As I researched for interesting articles about physics, the ones about antimatter and its different applications caught my attention. What is antimatter? As it name suggests it is the opposite of matter.  All the particles in the universe have an antiparticle counterpart. As we know particles have a mass and a charge; antiparticles conserve the mass but have the opposite charge. Even the neutron that is known for being “neutral” has a counterpart in antimatter, this is because its constituent quarks do have a charge and there exists a counterpart particle known as an antiquark.  Antimatter is not as common as matter, but according to Stéphane Coutu, Penn State particle physicist, “there was a time when it was as prevalent as matter itself”. Some physicists study these particles by creating them in a particle accelerator. When ordinary particles are accelerated they reach high velocities and collide with each other, these high energy explosions result in the antiparticles.  These antiparticles (antimatter) are short lived, and the process of annihilation turns them back to particles (matter).

One of society’s biggest concerns is health. Thousands of people every day are diagnosed with cancer, and scientists haven’t stop working for a cure. Antimatter has been proved useful in medicine.  The positrons, that are the counterparts of electrons, are used in the Positron Emission Tomography (PET). This technique is used to detect cancer by injecting a small amount of radioactive substance to the patient, which produces positrons as a result of the decay. When the annihilation process occurs the scan detects the high-energy photons (gamma rays) and creates a tridimensional image, therefore detecting cancer tumors. At the time scientists from CERN, the main European particle-physics laboratory near Geneva, are conducting experiments to determine whether it is possible for an antimatter beam made of antiprotons to destroy cancer tumors. They are using tumors in hamsters’ cells and if this therapy works there are plans to conduct it in humans. Unlike common radiotherapy the antimatter beam can be precisely calibrated to destroy only cancer cells, and because antimatter doesn’t travel far, patients wouldn’t need much shielding. There is another hope for cancer patients, and as a matter of fact antimatter has a bright future in medical diagnostic tools for the sake of those who need it.  

In the other hand antimatter is not only being used for good. The U.S Air Force has been researching antimatter for decades and nowadays there is a special division call ‘Revolutionary Munitions’ in charge of this job. They are seeking the development of an antimatter bomb that would be much more lethal than a nuclear bomb. How? Why? Well, just one-millionth of a gram of positrons would contain as much energy as 37.8 kilograms of TNT. The U.S. Air Force could make bombs powerful enough to destroy a large city. They also emphasize that this devices would be “clean” because there wouldn’t be radioactive fallout to worry about. They could wipe out entire nations and not make a mess, leaving their oil-fields intact. As we could see, antimatter can be used for many different purposes. It is in humanity’s hands to decide whether to create weapons to destroy each other or anti-weapons to survive.