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- Title
Observation of the antimatter helium-4 nucleus.
- Authors
Agakishiev, H.; Aggarwal, M. M.; Ahammed, Z.; Alakhverdyants, A. V.; Alekseev, I.; Alford, J.; Anderson, B. D.; Anson, C. D.; Arkhipkin, D.; Averichev, G. S.; Balewski, J.; Beavis, D. R.; Behera, N. K.; Bellwied, R.; Betancourt, M. J.; Betts, R. R.; Bhasin, A.; Bhati, A. K.; Bichsel, H.; Bielcik, J.
- Abstract
High-energy nuclear collisions create an energy density similar to that of the Universe microseconds after the Big Bang; in both cases, matter and antimatter are formed with comparable abundance. However, the relatively short-lived expansion in nuclear collisions allows antimatter to decouple quickly from matter, and avoid annihilation. Thus, a high-energy accelerator of heavy nuclei provides an efficient means of producing and studying antimatter. The antimatter helium-4 nucleus (), also known as the anti-α (), consists of two antiprotons and two antineutrons (baryon number B = −4). It has not been observed previously, although the α-particle was identified a century ago by Rutherford and is present in cosmic radiation at the ten per cent level. Antimatter nuclei with B < −1 have been observed only as rare products of interactions at particle accelerators, where the rate of antinucleus production in high-energy collisions decreases by a factor of about 1,000 with each additional antinucleon. Here we report the observation of , the heaviest observed antinucleus to date. In total, 18 counts were detected at the STAR experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC; ref. 6) in 109 recorded gold-on-gold (Au+Au) collisions at centre-of-mass energies of 200 GeV and 62 GeV per nucleon-nucleon pair. The yield is consistent with expectations from thermodynamic and coalescent nucleosynthesis models, providing an indication of the production rate of even heavier antimatter nuclei and a benchmark for possible future observations of in cosmic radiation.
- Publication
Nature, 2011, Vol 473, Issue 7347, p353
- ISSN
0028-0836
- Publication type
Academic Journal
- DOI
10.1038/nature10079