Astrophysics AKICOLJ

[philmophlegm]

This http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14405122 is currently the 'most shared' news story on the BBC News website. Basically, a thin band of antimattetr particles has been observed around the Earth.

What I would like to understand (and please use layman's terms) is how you actually go about detecting anti-protons.


Also, don't you think it's interesting that stories like this attract a lot of attention from readers of the news website but are unlikely to feature in the television news? TV news (and radion news for that matter) is usually dominated by politics. I think that politics is given too much weight in news bulletins at the expense of other topics.

Comments

[iainjcoleman.livejournal.com]

To detect an antiproton, you're looking for a particle that has the mass of a proton, but a negative electric charge. This spacecraft detects antiprotons by using a combination of two instruments: a magnetic spectrometer (that detects the charge and momentum of particles) and a time-of-flight detector (that calculates the velocity and rate of energy loss of particles). In principle it's straightforward once you have these measurements: you have measured the charge directly, and if you divide the momentum by the velocity you get the mass. In practice it's a bit more complicated: you have to take into account various complicating factors such as particles scattering within the detector (that can lead to mistaking a proton for an antiproton) and antiprotons colliding with protons and annihilating within the detector (which produces a tell-tale signature of other particles).

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Cheers!

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Yes, thank you!