|
The gravitational interaction of antimatter with matter or antimatter has not been conclusively observed by physicists. While the overwhelming consensus among physicists is that antimatter will attract both matter and antimatter at the same rate that matter attracts matter, there is a strong desire to confirm this experimentally. Antimatter's rarity and tendency to annihilate when brought into contact with matter makes its study a technically demanding task. Most methods for the creation of antimatter (specifically antihydrogen) result in high-energy particles and atoms of high kinetic energy, which are unsuitable for gravity-related study. In recent years, first ALPHA and then ATRAP have trapped antihydrogen atoms at CERN; in 2013 ALPHA used such atoms to set the first free-fall loose bounds on the gravitational interaction of antimatter with matter, with a relative precision of the measurement of ±100%, not enough for a clear scientific statement about the sign of gravity acting on antimatter. Future experiments need to be performed with higher precision, either with beams of antihydrogen (AEGIS or GBAR) or with trapped antihydrogen (ALPHA). == Three hypotheses == Thus far, there are three hypotheses about how ''antimatter'' gravitationally interacts ''with normal matter'': *Normal gravity: The standard assumption is that gravitational interactions of matter and antimatter are identical. *Antigravity: Some authors argue that antimatter repels matter with the same magnitude as matter attracts itself. (see below). *Gravivector and graviscalar: Later difficulties in creating quantum gravity theories have led to the idea that antimatter may react with a slightly different magnitude.〔Goldman, Hughes and Nieto, "Gravity and antimatter", Scientific American, volume 258, March 1988, pages 48-56.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Gravitational interaction of antimatter」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|