Cern's truck to deliver world's first antimatter transport

Later this month, CERN's truck will embark on a 20-minute test drive around its campus, carrying a precious cargo - a 1-tonne device containing some of the rarest material on Earth, antimatter. This milestone marks the world's first attempt to transport this delicate substance, which is so sensitive that when it meets normal matter, both are consumed in a burst of pure energy.

Unraveling the mystery of the universe's matter dominance

Scientists have long been puzzled by the fact that our universe is predominantly made of matter, while antimatter seems to be scarce. The Baryon Antibaryon Symmetry Experiment (BASE) at CERN aims to shed light on this enigma. 'A core question we want to understand is where did matter come from,' says Dr Christian Smorra, a physicist on the project. 'And then, if you know about antimatter, it's natural to ask, why is that not here? The process is not understood and we are hunting for clues as to why it happened.'

Antimatter, a substance often romanticized in Science fiction, is actually quite mundane in reality. It's readily available in the form of bananas, which emit antiparticles through radioactive decay. However, these particles have limited value for understanding the universe. The device on CERN's truck will carry about 1,000 antimatter particles, weighing a mere billionth of a trillionth of a gram.

The journey to this moment has taken years. Antimatter was first predicted in 1928 by physicist Paul Dirac, who combined quantum theory with special relativity. Four years later, Carl Anderson at Caltech detected the first antimatter particle, an antielectron or positron. Since then, scientists have confirmed the existence of antimatter versions of electrons, protons, and neutrons, which can assemble into anti-atoms and anti-molecules.

To contain and transport this fragile material, CERN's Antimatter Factory uses advanced technology. Researchers smash high-energy protons into a dense metal target, creating showers of secondary particles, including antiprotons. These are then steered into a decelerator, slowed down, and captured in an antimatter trap.

However, the facility's decelerator, which uses powerful fields, makes it impossible to perform sensitive measurements nearby. Other laboratories could measure the antimatter with 100 times more precision, highlighting the need for a reliable transport system.

To achieve this, Smorra and his colleague Stefan Ulmer are building a device to receive antiprotons at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf. The trap must hold antimatter in such a way that it never comes into contact with normal matter. This is achieved through ultra-high vacuum, cryogenic cooling, and strong magnetic and electric fields.

For the test run, the trap will be powered by batteries that last about four hours. Longer trips will require a dedicated generator on board. 'If we ever want to do experiments with antiprotons somewhere else, we need to get this on the road, and that's what we're trying to do,' Smorra says. 'First of all, we have to show we can move the antimatter, and this is the big milestone for us.'