Positron factory: Physicist Hui Chen sets up targets for the anti-matter experiment at the LLNL laser facility.
Credit: LLNL
"We've entered a new era," Beiersdorfer added. "Now, that we've looked for it, it's almost like it hit us right on the head. We envision a centre for antimatter research, using lasers as cheaper antimatter factories."
Particles of antimatter are almost immediately annihilated by contact with normal matter, and converted to pure energy in the form of gamma rays.
There is considerable speculation as to why the observable universe appears to be almost entirely matter, whether other universes could be almost entirely antimatter, and what might be possible if antimatter could be harnessed.
Product of energetic celestial events
Normal matter and antimatter are thought to have been in balance in the very early universe, but, due to a mysterious 'asymmetry', the antimatter decayed or was annihilated, and today very little remains.
Over the years, physicists had theorised about antimatter, but it wasn't confirmed to exist experimentally until 1932.
High-energy cosmic rays impacting Earth's atmosphere produce minute quantities of antimatter in the resulting jets, and physicists have learned to produce modest amounts of anti-matter using traditional particle accelerators and smaller laser set-ups in the lab.
Antimatter may also be churned our in regions like the centre of the Milky Way and other galaxies, where very energetic celestial events occur. The presence of the resulting antimatter is detectable by the gamma rays produced when positrons are destroyed when they come into contact with nearby matter.
With the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
