December 10, 2024

Physicists are one step closer to creating a gamma laser

Physicists are one step closer to creating a gamma laser

According to a new study, hollow spherical bubbles filled with gas from positronium atoms (a key component of the gamma laser) are stable in liquid helium.

When an electron collides with its antiparticle, the positron, they can annihilate to create a powerful electromagnetic radiation called gamma rays, or to form an exotic hydrogen-like bonded state atom called positronium.To create a gamma laser beam, positronium must be in a Bose-Einstein condensate state to provide moreinteractions and amplify radiation.

Calculation by physicist Allen Mills of CaliforniaUniversity of Riverside shows that a bubble of millions of such exotic atoms in liquid helium will exist as a Bose-Einstein condensate of antimatter and will be six times denser than air.

Helium becomes liquid only when extremelylow temperatures and has a negative affinity for positronium. Bubbles are formed in it and exist for a long time due to the fact that helium repels positronium.

Mills says his lab is alreadysets up a bunch of antimatter in search of predicted exotic bubbles. The closest experimental results can be the observation of positronium tunneling through a graphene sheet, as well as the formation of a laser beam of positronium atoms.

The gamma laser can be used for medical imaging, in spacecraft, quantum computers and for the treatment of cancer.

Previously, we also reported that scientists had found a new way to measure gravity using pairs of atoms.

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