Dr. Eve Stenson: Using Anti-Matter to Create Pair Plasmas скачать в хорошем качестве

Dr. Eve Stenson: Using Anti-Matter to Create Pair Plasmas

Plasma are usually ionized gases composed of very light negatively charged electrons and heavy positively charged ions. On the average, there are as many negative electrons as positive ions – that is, the plasma is quasi-neutral. When you write down all of the equations that describe the fundamental properties of a plasma, at the end of the day, what matters is the “charge-to-mass ratio”, the charge on the positive (or negative) charge carrier divided by its mass. Most (if not all) particles like electrons have “anti-particles”. The anti-particle has exactly the same properties as the “not-anti-particle” but with the opposite electrical charge. The electron’s anti-particle is called the positron. So if you can make a plasma out of negative electrons and positive hydrogen ions, why not make a plasma out of electrons and positrons? In principle, the same equations should apply, just different “charge-to-mass” ratios. Making an electron-positron plasma is incredibly difficult because first you need to make and collect the positrons; and then keep the plasma alive. (Unfortunately, when electrons and positrons collide, they destroy each other.) In this video, Dr. Eve Stenson of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics describes her research on making and studying electron-positron plasmas with the goal of testing fundamental laws of plasma physics and to gain insight into the physics of the early universe.