Antimatter

By Armin Motevaghe 

On Earth, antimatter is not mined; it is crafted, particle by particle, inside machines.  

Modern production begins in powerful accelerators such as those at CERN. A beam of protons is smashed into a metal target, creating a spray of new particles. Among this storm, a fraction are antiprotons. Magnetic lenses collect these rare antiparticles and guide them into a ring called the Antiproton Decelerator, where their speed is reduced so they can be tamed instead of flying away at near‑light speed.  

Once slowed, the antiprotons are injected into electromagnetic “bottles” known as Penning traps. Here, strong magnetic fields force them into spirals, while electric fields close the ends of the trap. The interior is an extreme vacuum, far emptier than interplanetary space, so that no normal atoms are left to touch and destroy the antimatter.  

Cooling is essential. By mixing antiprotons with cold electrons, or using advanced laser and sympathetic cooling techniques, physicists bring their temperature to just a few degrees above absolute zero. Colder particles move more slowly and can be confined for hours, days, more than a year in the best experiments.  

To make neutral antimatter, such as antihydrogen, trapped antiprotons are merged with positrons, the antimatter partners of electrons. A few pairs bind together into antihydrogen atoms, which can then be held in special magnetic traps that act on their tiny magnetic moments.  

Every step is inefficient and energy‑hungry. All the antimatter ever produced on Earth amounts to far less than a microgram, at an effective cost of many billions of dollars per gram. Yet these fragile specks let us test the deepest symmetries of nature, and question why our universe is made of matter at all.