Thursday, 18 June 2020

antimatter - Hydrogen vs Antihelium (or vice versa)


I think it's fairly common knowledge that matter and antimatter annihilate each other on contact. But what happens if two dissimilar atoms collide?


For example, what happens if a Hydrogen atom (1 proton, 1 electron) contacts an antihelium atom (2 antiprotons, 1 antineutrons, 2 positrons)? Are we left with a new antideuterium atom? Do all the remaining particles fly apart? Does something even more exotic happen?



Answer



Annihilation typically happens on the quark level. Nucleons and antineucleons are made up of quarks and antiquarks, and rearrangement can give leptons or mesons as output states, usually escaping with high energy. This can be accompanied by photons. The exact mix you get in different experiments will depend on the the statistical branching ratio for the reaction.


In your case, you will have a preponderance of antiquarks, so you will end up with some antibaryons in the output -- antiprotons, antineutrons or antideuterons. Again, the exact mix you get from experiment to experiment will depend on the the statistical branching ratio for the reaction.


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