Big Bang: Scientists trap elusive antimatter atoms

Scientists have captured elusive atoms of antimatter. International physicists at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research,or CERN,said they had overcome a basic problem in studying atoms of antimatter. While such atoms have been created routinely in the lab for years,they tend to disappear so fast scientists don’t have a chance to study them.

But in a report published online by journal Nature,the scientists said they’d been able to trap individual atoms and keep them around for a bit more than one-tenth of a second. To a particle physicist,that’s a pretty long time. “For us it’s a big breakthrough because it means we can take the next step,which is to try to compare matter and antimatter,” team spokesman,US scientist Jeffrey Hangst,said.

Hangst and his colleagues,trapped 38 anti-hydrogen atoms. Hangst said that since the experiments they reported in Nature,they’ve been able to hold on to the atoms even longer. “Unfortunately I can’t tell you how long,because we haven’t published the number yet,” Hangst said. “But I can tell you that it’s much,much longer than a tenth of a second.

Studying such atoms could answer questions like why antimatter disappeared from the natural universe. Theorists said both matter and antimatter must have been created in equal amounts in the Big Bang.