Zhou Chen nodded after hearing this, isn't it the problem of these three links that restricts the practicality of antimatter!

If the three problems of how to generate antimatter, how to preserve it, and how to use it can be solved, then the whole valuable energy pathway will be strung together. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

"Is there a solution now?" He asked.

"Regarding the first question, how to generate antimatter, from the existing theories, it does not seem to be too difficult to generate antimatter, especially if we have a very large particle collider!"

Gustav nodded slightly, with a faint smile on his face.

According to the proven particle model theory, we know that atoms are made of nuclei and electrons, and atomic nuclei are made of positively charged protons and uncharged neutrons, so when the nuclei collide and break, what are protons and neutrons made of?

In fact, the answer is clear, protons and neutrons are made of quarks!

There are two main types of quarks, which are upper quarks with a "+2/3 charge" and lower quarks with a "-1/3 charge".

Zhou Chen and his team have verified the correctness of the particle model through particle collision experiments, and observed all 61 elementary particles, and the "upper quarks and lower quarks" that make up protons and neutrons are two of the 61 elementary particles.

"Two upper quarks and one lower quark" constitute protons with a "+1 charge", which shows that they are positively charged. "One upper quark and two lower quarks" constitute a neutron that is exactly electrically neutral and has no electric charge.

Since protons and neutrons themselves are composed of three quarks, when the nuclei move at high speed and collide, as long as the force is large enough to a certain extent, the protons and neutrons will split into upper quarks and lower quarks, and then as the ambient temperature drops, the upper quarks and lower quarks will recombine and recondense into protons or neutrons.

But here's the question, what kind of reorganization will the upper quark and the lower quark make?

Take the helium nucleus as an example, its nucleus is composed of two protons and two neutrons, we can think that it will crack out six upper quarks and six lower quarks after the collision, of course, it is impossible to only appear upper quarks and lower quarks when the actual collision, the "matter" that turns into energy in the extreme environment will be re-condensed to form positive quarks and antiquarks with opposite charge numbers, and photons will be formed after the annihilation of positive and antiquarks, and positive and antiquarks will be formed after the collision of photons.

Then there will be many upper and lower quarks in the collision chamber, as well as their antiquarks. These quarks will also present a variety of possible products when they recombine: protons, neutrons, antiprotons, antineutrons;

Neutrons and antineutrons decay into protons and antiprotons, and protons and antiprotons will eventually be left in the collision chamber.

In other words, a strong collision can create a certain amount of positive matter and antimatter, and the key is to separate them in time to prevent them from annihilating.

The amount of antiprotons is definitely less than that of protons, and if annihilation occurs, the matter that recondenses in the end will only be positive matter.

"We can retrofit the Very Large Particle Collider to separate protons and antiprotons by their different electrical properties! However, the difficulty lies in the large number of chaotic particles in the collision chamber, which is difficult to separate. ”

Gustav sighed.

Zhuang Xiaohe thought for a while and said, "Maybe I have a feasible idea!" ”

"What's the idea?" Zhou Chen cast his gaze over.

"We can make the collision of particles continue to occur in the collision chamber, creating an extreme environment that happens to be in the range where energy can be converted into matter relatively well! In this way, there is a large amount of matter that collides and is converted into energy, and there is energy that is re-condensed into matter! ”

After listening to this, Gustav made an opinion: "In this case, the temperature inside needs to be very strictly controlled. ”

"Yes, the extreme environment is critical at this time!" Zhuang Xiaohe nodded, "We need to go through many experiments and accumulate a large amount of data to determine an ideal environment, which allows the charged upper and lower quarks and their antiquarks to condense into positive and antimatter!" ”

"At the same time as the transformation between energy and matter occurs, we can apply a strong magnetic field vertically to quickly separate the positive and antimatter at the moment when they have just formed!"

The positive and negative protons have different electrical properties and naturally fly in two directions!

"But there's another problem here!"

Zhou Chen frowned and said: "The super-large particle collider itself needs a horizontal magnetic field to accelerate the particles, and if a longitudinal separation magnetic field is applied, it will inevitably interfere with the acceleration of the particles!" Unless ......"

"Unless the two are alternated, when the particles just enter the collision chamber and collide, quickly change the direction of the magnetic field in the collision chamber and turn it into a longitudinal magnetic field!" Gustav's eyes lit up and he said.

Zhou Chen also said happily: "If we make the collision chamber small enough, then the generation of longitudinal magnetic field at a certain moment will not affect the particles moving at high speed in the entire large ring." ”

"It takes extreme precision!" Zhuang Xiaohe said with a straight face.

"So we can also improve it, it's better to make the acceleration ring and the collision chamber not in the same orbital circle!"

"You mean, acceleration is acceleration, collision is collision?" Zhou Chen's eyes lit up and asked.

Gustav nodded: "Yes, maybe we can open two channels in the tangential direction of the ring on the acceleration ring, so that the particles can enter the collision chamber through the channels, so that one side can continue to accelerate the particles at high speed, and the other side can carry out collision experiments and strip out enough antimatter!" ”

"It's perfect to keep accelerating particles and provide a constant supply of raw material for collision experiments!" Zhou Chen couldn't help but clap his palms, if this could really be achieved, then it would not be a problem to obtain a large amount of antimatter.

"Is this design achievable?" He asked.

Gustav buried his head in the calculations for a while, and after a while he looked up and said with certainty: "Yes! However, it can take up to ten times more energy than a normal collision experiment, so that there is enough antimatter to produce! ”

"Energy is not an issue!" Zhou Chen said with a smile on his face. Now the Earth Fleet is so poor that only energy remains.

"Since the generation of antimatter is no longer a problem, let's talk about the storage of antimatter in one go!"

Without good means of storage, even the amount of antimatter produced is in vain.

"In fact, we can find a solution to the problem of storage from the thinking of our predecessors, and it is not particularly troublesome!" Gustav Road.

Zhou Chen nodded and said with interest: "You say." ”

Gustav smiled and said, "Just now we have obtained positively charged protons and negatively charged antiprotons, and through the guidance of the magnetic field, we can introduce them into an environment full of negative and positive charges respectively, so that the protons and antiprotons will assemble hydrogen atoms and antihydrogen atoms together with the charges." ”

"Of course, it's not over yet, the process of assembling atoms just now is like spraying a steel ball with metallic paint, and we have to keep them going."

Hearing this, Zhou Chen had already understood, and couldn't help laughing.

The packaged atoms no longer show an external charge, and they appear to be neutral.

Many people may think that if you put an antiproton in contact with a positive charge, won't the two be annihilated? Of course not, think about it, the charge of the electrons outside the nucleus is not the same, will they be annihilated?

The reason is that electrons outside the nucleus do not run to the nucleus, and although they attract opposites, the properties of the electrons outside the nucleus make it want to break free from the nucleus rather than get closer.

And put here, the antiproton and the positive charge combine to form antimatter, and the positive charge here must be a positively charged positron, although there are no natural positrons in nature, but there is a channel that can produce them in large quantities, and that is nuclear fusion!

During nuclear fusion, four protons fuse into a helium nucleus, releasing two electron neutrinos and two positrons. It can be said that the Earth fleet is now producing a large number of positrons, and if you divide some of them, you can assemble antimatter together with antiprotons.

"For the storage of antimatter, we can consider the electron beam Penning trap!" Zhuang Xiaohe said a little excitedly.

Zhou Chen nodded, the so-called electron beam Penning trap, in fact, is commonly said to be through a special magnetic field, which confines antimatter within a certain spatial range!

The principle is also very simple, although the average atom is electrically neutral, it still has a certain magnetic moment, which can be constrained by a special magnetic field, and the same is true for antimatter!

Zhou Chenyi clapped his palms and said: "The 'painted' antiprotons become antimatter with atomic structure, and then send them into the electron beam Penning well, so that we can solve the problem of antimatter storage." ”

"There's the antimatter engine left next......"

Gustav said with a smile: "The antimatter engine is precisely the easiest of the three links to solve, and we can control the power of the antimatter engine by letting the 'fuel' enter the antimatter reaction chamber little by little." ”

"Exactly! However, since antimatter is completely annihilated, and the energy released is far beyond nuclear fusion, our control over the 'fuel' must reach the atomic level! Even some large antimatter engines can't throw too much particles of antimatter! ”

In fact, with the technology of controlled nuclear fusion, it is very easy to create an antimatter engine, because they are almost exactly the same except for the different raw materials, and even the antimatter engine does not require too harsh conditions in addition to strong requirements for magnetic field constraints, which is more "friendly" than controlled nuclear fusion.

Speaking of which, the most difficult of the three links is how to generate antimatter, which is a problem for scientists to scratch their heads, how to control the extreme environment, how to set the specific parameters, need to go through a large number of experiments, accumulate a large amount of data before making a judgment.

However, in any case, the raw material generation of the whole antimatter engine has more detailed theoretical support from the generation of the reaction to the end of the reaction, and the next thing to do is how to translate the theory into practice. (To be continued.) )