A much more complicated example is the proton accelerator at Fermilab. When the electrons hit the phosphor-coated screen a small dot of light shows up. A hot filament provides the electrons and a several thousand volt electric potential accelerates them. The simplest example is a cathode ray tube. After that you need a combination of electric fields to accelerate the particles and magnetic fields to guide them. To be brief, you need an initial source of particles: a hot filament for an electron accelerator, a bottle of hydrogen for a proton accelerator. Each one would be worth a long discussion. There are many different types of particle accelerators using a wide variety of techniques. That's a tough question to answer in a short space. (published on ) Follow-Up #1: Creation of antimatter at the CERN LHC Many gluons must be exchanged because you need to create three antiquarks to make up an antiproton, and get lucky enough for them to stick together in an antiproton. Instead of photons, the mediating force carriers are gluons, which carry the strong nuclear force. Most of the stuff that gets made are pions, but every now and then you'll get an antiproton. The process is similar, where protons are thrown with high energy into stationary targets. Positrons then can be separated away with magnets and collected in particle accelerators.Īt Fermilab, we make antiprotons all the time. If the electron and positron thus produced have enough energy, they can undergo scattering with more nuclei, radiate photons which can pair-produce more electrons and positrons, creating a whole 'shower' of electrons, positrons, and photons. The second nucleus is there to exchange energy and momentum with, otherwise you cannot start with a photon (zero mass) and end up with two objects with mass and conserve energy and momentum.

High-energy photons, when they come near another nucleus, can spontaneously turn into an electron-positron pair (conserving charge and the 'number of electrons', which both add to zero since a positron has positive charge and is an anti-electron). When a fast electron is diverted from its straight-line path, it radiates some of its energy away as photons. The larger the charge of the nucleus, the more frequently this deflection will happen at large angles. The details are as follows:Ī high-energy electron, when it comes near a nucleus, will feel the electric field of the charged nucleus, and be deflected in its path. If you get electrons going fast enough and throw them at a piece of material called a target, preferably made out of atoms that have a large atomic number, you will have a shower of electrons, positrons (anti-electrons) and photons. The main idea in making antimatter is just getting enough energy in a collision to allow the particles to be made.

Antimatter be generated