The
Antimatter Factory
(by
Django Manglunki)
Over the past 20 years scientists
at CERN have been using antiparticles in many different ways for
their daily work.
Antiparticles can be generated by colliding subatomic particles. Before
being delivered to the various physics experiments, they must be isolated,
collected and stored in order to tune their energy to the appropriate
level.
Until now, each of these steps has been carried out by a dedicated machine with the main purpose of providing high energy antiparticles.
But now the first "self-contained antiproton factory", the Antiproton Decelerator (or AD), is operational at CERN . It will produce the low energy antiprotons needed for a range of studies, including the synthesis of antihydrogen atoms - the creation of antimatter.
