Particle Physics with Pony Fanfic – Antimatter and Colliders · 11:57pm Dec 11th, 2019
Continuing my discussion of possible story ideas about High Energy Physics for my SciComm with FanFic project. Deadline for pitching stories: 15 December.
Antimatter: Antimatter is a strange mirror reflection of the matter in our universe. Antiparticles have identical, but opposite, properties to particles: negatively charged electrons are mirrored by positrons. Antiparticles can be created, studied, and are used in medical technology. It remains a mystery why our universe is almost entirely made of matter, when we believe the Big Bang created both particles and antimatters. The answer may be connected to subtle asymmetries between particles and antiparticles, being probed at high energy interactions at experiments at the Large Hadron Collider and other big machines. For more details, see my blog post: Oxford Research into Antimatter.
The usual idea is to write a sci-fi story involving antimatter as a spacecraft fuel or weapon of the future. See New Scientist: Antimatter in fiction: Spaceships and bombs. What else could we do? The tale of antimatter and matter is about symmetry (and a tiny asymmetry). Could we have a tale of two siblings? Celestia and Luna might do, but Flim and Flam may be easier. The antimatter world is a kind of mirror image of our own. Magic mirrors are not uncommon in Equestria.
If you want a challenge, there is a classic physics puzzle asking: if you established radio contact with an alien planet, what question could you ask to learn if they are made from matter or antimatter? Let me know if you want more details.
Or you could come up with your own fantasy explanation to why the universe we see is just made of matter, when the Big Bang produced equal amounts of matter and antimatter.
Particle colliders: Particle colliders are the favourite research tools of particle physicists. We use high electric fields to push particles to close to the speed of light, then focus them into two beams, which we let smash together. The goal is to identify new scientific phenomena in the resulting particle debris. The first colliders were relatively small gadgets housed in a single room. CERN’s first accelerator, the synchrocyclotron was built in 1957, followed by a series of bigger and bigger machines, leading up to the Large Hadron Collider. What is future? The Next Linear Collider may be built in Japan. There are also plans for a Future Circular Collider and other more exotic designs. For more details, see my blog post: Collider Physics – The Art of Smashing Particles.
Particles Colliders are all about big scale infrastructure. This is an opportunity for Pinkie Pie to put on her hard hat and show her civil engineering skills. Maybe working with Twilight, who would have the interest in recreating the conditions at the moment of creation.
Big particle accelerators also involve international rivalry. No doubt as soon as Shining Armour learns that his little sister is building an Equestrian Collider, then the Crystal Empire will start their own project. Then as the complexity of both projects becomes apparent, they will decide it is better to be friends and work together. And invite the yaks along since they are experts at particle smashing.
For another idea, see my old blog post: New Season Update from the CERN particle physics laboratory
The fun thing about matter and antimatter, is discovering that hydrogen and anti hydrogen are made up of exactly the same amount of matter antimatter electrons and pions, and the only difference is which neutrino or anti neutrino they emit on decomposition?
Then the fun thing comes from working out which of neutrino and anti neutrino is which relative to the universe?
I love the idea of yaks smashing applied towards particles!
Goin around looking at old stuff due to lockdown. Two comments. First...
Yaks best at smashing!
As to what question you could ask... well the most natural way would be if there exists a CPT violation, but assuming there isn't one... how are you communicating? Let's assume it is with light. Now youll have to check me on this as quantum dynsmics isnt my strong suit, but it seems like the polarization of light emitted by (or possibly through) a non-linear optical system ought to depend at least weakly on the charge of the dominant charge carrier of the medium (presumable negative for our end). In which case a continuous stream broadcast can ask the other end to prepare an identical system and see if the output polarization matches that of the received light or not.
Did that make any sense at all? Its been a number of years since I did any quantum stuff like this.
The classic story is to illustrate CP violation in weak interactions. Here's the version told by Frank Close in his book 'Antimatter'. I think using the polarization of light would work too. CPT violation is just fan fiction by theorists.
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