Big Questions: Missing Antimatter

Einstein's equation E = mc2 is often said to mean that energy can be converted into matter. More accurately, energy can be converted to matter and antimatter.

During the first moments of the Big Bang, the universe was smaller, hotter and energy was everywhere. As the universe expanded and cooled, the energy converted into matter and antimatter. According to our best understanding, these two substances should have been created in equal quantities. However when we look out into the cosmos we see only matter and no antimatter.

The absence of antimatter is one of the Big Mysteries of modern physics. In this video, Fermilab's Dr. Don Lincoln explains the problem, although doesn't answer it. The answer, as in all Big Mysteries, is still unknown and one of the leading research topics of contemporary science.

Related video:

[magichands]

I like this guy. Clear, concise and interesting.

[naimulhaq]

Physicists seldom deal with the quantum fields and virtual particles, yet the Standard Model and particle physics and their interactions with the QF is fundamental. Their study of the QF will reveal the mysteries of particle production, anti-matter paradox, inflation, dark matter and dark energy etc.

[cgaccount]

Since E=m is there any reason why perhaps the antimatter was just left as energy? I know we assume that when matter is "created" we should see equal amounts of antimatter created. But again... if E=m then perhaps we're wrong and the missing antimatter isn't missing. It just decided to stay as energy? For some random reason the universe simply said "nah, they're = so rather than antimatter I'll just make a batch of matter and leave the antimatter component as E today". Nothing missing. It is just energy

[proteusindomitus]

0:38 and in highschool they called me immature..I could've been a particle physicist for all I know

[alleneverhart]

There is a tacit assumption in this matter/antimatter thing that maybe needs to be examined - that the initial condition of the universe was zero matter. Perhaps that's not right -maybe the universe has net matter because it always had net matter? Is that a fly in the quark soup?

[denissavgir]

I have been pondering the matter/antimatter asymmetry problem and I think I may have a potential solution. Is it possible that the matter/antimatter asymmetry of the universe was caused by primordial black holes? Perhaps during the early universe, primordial black holes were created due to the initial dense conditions, which ended up accreting uneven amounts of matter/antimatter, and also radiating hawking radiation particles which were uneven in their amounts of matter versus antimatter?

[ericr]

Serious question, if anyone at Fermi is still monitoring this (this is not really a lay-question, though everyone with a survey class understanding tries to answer it by re-explaining about what they understand anti-matter to be):

Why do you believe that the antimatter is "missing?"

It seems to be in us and all around us, bound integrally with what you think of as "ordinary matter." Nothing in ordinary matter actually touches most of the time, which is why it's not constantly self-annihilating.

In beta decay "ordinary matter" emits antimatter - it's bound up in the quarks. I know you don't think of it this way, you probably conceive the positron as "created ex nihilo when the proton becomes a neutron" but that is my point; there is an unexamined premise at work in that conception. You actually ignore the observation because of the theory. It's obvious that the unpaired antimatter particle is being emitted from within the red upquark, leaving whatever remains as a red downquark. The theory dictates ex nihilo creation weirdly, consistently coincident with quark transformation... and also dictates that the universe shouldn't exist. In both cases observation rebukes the theory.

We separate antimatter out of standard matter all the time in colliders. Why is it that this practice still hasn't led to the general realization that matter is actually full of antimatter? That the duality of matter-antimatter within every quark is what causes the effects described as direction and spin? In fact, this is the reason the weak force cares about which particles it affects.

The antimatter seems to be everywhere in equal or nearly equal proportion to matter.

What, specifically (not a big explanation of the standard model without examining the premise that antimatter is not an integral part of "total matter"), leads us to ignore our observations of antimatter so much even when we extract antimatter all the time in colliders?

[forrosailor]

Excellent video. Thanks for the all the good work you guys do.

[michieldrost]

Once again, great video, well speaking presenter and excelent content.

[soumyabratapanja]

What if some antimatter turns into energy as they holds the same properties as matter. Is it not possible that how we get energy from matter in the same way we can produce energy from antimatter? If we can then we can say that some antimatters have turned into energy so there are some matter that can be exist.

[tanmoydutta]

Sir, there is one question I want you to take up, in a video:
If energy is available to be withdrawn from vacuum, provided it must be returned to vacuum as fast as possible, according to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, then doesn't it violate the Law of Conservation of Energy?

[mrdsn]

Clearly the anti-matter is not visible because it is responsible for the annihilation of missing socks.

[Jackewin]

speaking electronically and magnetically is the attractive force the same if not how does it differ?

[rja]

In the early universe, would primordial mini black holes have formed from anti matter as well as matter ? If so, what happens when it decays to the critical mass? What comes from the explosion, pure energy?

[kestass.]

I personally think matter is equal to antimatter, it is like a counterpart of one another. In 3 dimensional space they exists in the exactly same place, but opposite in inverted dimension (inwards and out) anchoring each other through dimensional fabric.

[hllok]

Isn’t it true that ‘missing’ bb antimatter simply went the opposite direction in time?

[qualquan]

Like the idea about slight preference for matter plus massive annihilation explaining why photons are the most numerous particles. But on annihilation which kind of photon produced, only gamma or others too?

[Lombey]

Hi, heres an uninformed question.
As far as i know, antimatter and matter behave in very similar way. Is it wrong to assume that the wave lenght of light emmited of say, hidrogen and anti hidrogen are the same? if they are, and we receive that light from far away would we know if it was originated by one or the other?
This was to say, maybe, and just maybe, there are full galaxies made of antimatter and we dont know. Probably wrong but i thought of that as i watched the video.

[WhitefirePL]

An old video, but what irks me about this problem is that we don't have anti-energy, just energy. If you blow up a nuclear bomb, you get energy from just matter, but if you could somehow collect all this energy and reprocess it into matter, you would get matter and antimatter. With both events... you get antimatter from matter?

[dotter]

Just a thought. What would happen if an anti-hydrogen atom encountered a deuterium atom? Would a neutron remain? (There are no anti-neutrons, are there?) And don't neutrons eventually decay?