Purifying Positronium Could Help Develop Gamma Ray Lasers and Produce Fusion Power

[n2doc]

ScienceDaily (May 4, 2010) — Positronium is a short-lived system in which an electron and its anti-particle are bound together. In 2007, physicists at the University of California, Riverside created molecular positronium, a brand-new substance, in the laboratory. Now they have succeeded in isolating for the first time a sample of spin polarized positronium atoms.

Spin is a fundamental and intrinsic property of an electron, and refers to the electron's angular momentum. Spin polarized atoms are atoms that are all in the same spin state. A collection of spin polarized positronium atoms is needed to make a special form of matter, called the Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). The BEC, predicted in 1924 and created in 1995, allows scientists to study atoms in a unique manner.

"We achieved our result by increasing the density of the positronium atoms in our lab experiment," said David Cassidy, the lead author of the research paper and an assistant researcher working in the laboratory of Allen Mills, a professor of physics. "At such a high density, positronium atoms get annihilated simply by interacting with each other. But it turns out that not all the positronium atoms get annihilated under these conditions."

Cassidy explained that positronium atoms come in two types -- say, an up type and a down type. The positronium atoms are only annihilated when an up type meets a down type. Two atoms of the same type do not affect each other.

"So if you have 50 percent ups and 50 percent downs and you squeeze them all together they will totally annihilate and turn into gamma rays," he said. "But if you have, for example, about 66 percent ups and 33 percent downs, then only half of the ups will be destroyed. You will get a load of gamma rays -- but in the end you will be left with only one type of atom -- in this case, up atoms.

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http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100501013620.htm

[Ian David]

1. I need the Positronium to power my Pu-36 Explosive Space Modulator.

[unblock]

2. wow, david cassidy! who ever said teen heartthrobs don't grow up and amount to anything!

:evilgrin:

[HughMoran]

3. This process sounds eerily familiar to the process within the 'greatest explosion ever recorded'

ultra nova explosion. They talked about spin-pairs of matter-antimatter annihilating each other - the process took just long enough to temporarily disrupt the gamma radiation that prevents the star from collapsing onto itself. The star would sag inward creating more energy which would make more spin-pairs, and, you guessed it, one of the most violent thermonuclear chain-reactions in the universe. Good thing these people are only messing with a limited supply of this stuff :)

[formercia]

4. Don't try this at home.

:rofl: