![]() ![]() ![]() On a screen on the other side, an interference pattern typical of waves appears. In the standard version of the experiment, particles travel through a pair of slits in a solid barrier. The double-slit experiment demonstrates one of the fundamental tenets of quantum physics: that pointlike particles are also waves. If scientists can improve our knowledge about the strong force with the help of the PANDA experiment, they might also enhance our understanding how matter gets its mass.For the first time, researchers have performed a version of the famous double-slit experiment with antimatter particles. Hence, the mass arises because the strong force (the gluons) binds the quarks together to create the proton. A proton, for example, weighs 50 times more than the three quarks composing it. In this context, scientists also want to find out how particles come to have their mass. This would greatly increase our understanding of the strong force. In the PANDA experiment, scientists want to use particle-antiparticle annihilation as a ‘trick’ to create such particles, and discover which of them actually exist and what their properties are. They include ‘glueballs’, composite particles consisting solely of gluons. However, these particles have never been observed. Theories describing the strong force predict a whole range of exotic particles consisting of different combinations of quarks and gluons. It eventually becomes so strong that it is impossible to separate two quarks, because the amount of energy required to do so is so great that it would immediately create a new quark-antiquark pair. It has the unusual property of becoming stronger as the distance between interacting quarks increases. The strong force is mediated by particles called gluons, and can be thought of as a kind of ‘rubber band’. Scientists will fire antiprotons at protons in order to create particles that will provide us with deeper insights into the mysterious strong force. This effect will be exploited for the PANDA experiment (Antiproton Annihilation at Darmstadt). What really makes this difference special, however, is that whenever a particle meets its antiparticle, they annihilate each other in a burst of free energy from which other, new particles can arise. Anti-gold would glisten like real gold and anti-water would ripple like normal water. This means that we could not distinguish a world of antimatter from one of normal matter with the naked eye. Although antimatter has the opposite electrical charge to normal matter and also differs in other ways, as far as we know it obeys the same physical laws. Every particle of ‘normal’ matter has its corresponding antiparticle. In the world of elementary particles, it is not magic that is needed to make something disappear and be replaced by something completely new: Instead, physicists can use antiparticles - the building blocks of antimatter. generates magnetic fields that could lift 480 tonnes of iron.contains a superconducting magnet that is cooled down to -269☌.can measure 100 million particle tracks per second with a precision of 50 micrometers.is as long as a truck with a trailer and as tall as a two-story building: 18 metres long, 6 metres tall, and 6 metres wide.weighs as much as 235 elephants: 700 tonnes. ![]()
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