New measurements on anti-hydrogen particles obtained at Cern confirm that antimatter is actually the mirror of matter, and that there is a symmetry between these two components of nature. This is demonstrated by the latest data from Cern's Alpha collaboration, published in the journal Nature.
The physicists of the Alpha experiment, coordinated by Jeffrey Hangst, obtained anti-hydrogen atoms by binding anti-protons and anti-electrons, the so-called positrons. "The fine structure of the hydrogen atom, the simplest and most abundant element in the universe, has been studied in detail, the same cannot be said for its counterpart, the anti-hydrogen," explains Hangst.
Using magnetic and laser traps, they measured the quantum properties of anti-hydrogen with unprecedented precision, demonstrating that there is a profound symmetry in nature, as the so-called Standard Model provides, the reference theory of contemporary physics that describe how it is made nature in its most intimate constituents.
"This is an important step both in fundamental physics and from a technological point of view, which contributes, with other experiments, to finding differences between matter and antimatter," Gemma Testera of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics explained to ANSA ( Infn). "For the moment these differences have not been found, but understanding and comparing the properties of matter and antimatter - he noted - is essential because it can also help us understand the formation of the universe", where matter is currently predominant.
One of the mysteries of modern physics is, in fact, to understand why the original symmetry between matter and antimatter has disappeared in the aftermath of the Big Bang, where antimatter has ended and why we do not see, for example, anti-stars, anti- galaxies and even an anti-universe. Questions to which the AMS-02 antimatter hunter installed outside the orbiting station tries to find an answer.
From 27 January the instrument has been repaired and should be operational at least until 2028, after the complex orbit maintenance intervention carried out during four acrobatic spacewalks by the Italian astronaut of the European Space Agency (ESA), Luca Parmitano, in the final weeks of his second mission in space, Beyond.