Physicists trap a single antimatter particle for a month

Very cool! There's some wild ideas about antimatter capture in space via giant arrays of superconducting magnets trapping naturally occurring antimatter.

Apparently, nanograms / micrograms is enough to create a "antimatter catalyzed" fission/fusion propulsion system with enormous specific impulse / efficacy.

PDF: https://www.niac.usra.edu/files/studies/final_report/1071Bic...

Exciting results. The electron's magnetic moment is probably the most precise standard model prediction, and Gabrielse's group has measured it with 13 digits of accuracy. The positron is predicted to have exactly the same magnetic moment, but this has not been measured since 1987. With the new trap, they should be able to finally match the electron's precision.

I don't get how they know they have exactly one in there. I mean they're measuring the magnetic field but how on earth do you make sufficiently precise measurements to detect a single particle!?!

Edit: this is explained pretty extensively in the paper (https://cfp.physics.northwestern.edu/documents/2026OnePositr...). I'm gonna need to do some background reading though...

Direct link to article: https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.08147

Quantunamo Bay

Hope Aristotle with his 'telos' is wrong, and the antimatter particle does not have a purpose to annihilate itself with a +-matter particle. The universe will complain if it doesn't.

What happens if an anti proton hits a normal hydrogen atom?

I kind of want to know how they safely deal with its release (destruction)

That seems super safe. At least they are wearing gloves.

Does this hurt the positron?

> Every time they bang into something, there’s a chance of annihilation, but it doesn’t always happen

This goes against everything I've ever been told about antimatter. So a positron and electron can collide and not annihilate each other? How does that work? What happens to them in that case, and why does everybody say otherwise?

Similar work is done at the CERN LHC facility, where they can deliver antimatter to your door. Got a couple of hours? Check out Marco Reps' tour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yibef6nLCv8

Or cut to the chase at the 'antimatter factory', at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yibef6nLCv8&t=3186s

whats up with all the comments making analogies with AI torture repository?

One might measure the "amount of computation going on" as a proxy for consciousness, but "number of dissipative logic gates" can't be right since one can construct larger reversible circuits containing the same computation (and hence dissipation is a poor measure), although one could then use the total number of bits (including trash bits) as the measure.

but I don't understand why particle physics?

having all other comments (at the time of writing) be about consciousness of individual particles, seems to indicate these commenters specifically believe particle physics or antimatter to directly describe consciousness?

Or is this some kind of "disinfo inoculation campaign" to render us immune to "sentient rights propaganda"?

of course the cyclotron going clockwise.

...and will have to deal with the consequences

That's matter cruelty. We need more ethical ways to study those poor things. Does anyone know what happened after the experiment ? Did they finally let it go?

I hope they took precautions against the Camerlengo stealing it

The parents of the anti-matter particle then freeze time just as the containment is about to explode, allowing Picard and Geordi to wander around the facility looking for clues - until one scientists head slowly turns - they are also awake !!

[dead]

The Ackbar Effect

It probably got Copenhagen syndrome