Positronium has the potential to revolutionise physics but the elusive substance had been too hot to handle.
Lisa Gloggler was among those who set up an intricate system of lasers to cool positronium atomsIt's extremely rare and usually exists for just 142 billionths of a second.
But until now the elusive substance has been almost impossible to analyse because its atoms move around so much."Physicists are in love with positronium," said Dr Ruggero Caravita, who led the research at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research , near Geneva. "It is the perfect atom to do experiments with antimatter."It is a so-called exotic atom consisting of both matter and antimatter - so very unusual stuff indeed.Antimatter is its opposite.
''Positronium is such a simple system. It consists 50% of matter and 50% of antimatter," said Lisa Gloggler, the Phd student. "We are hoping that if there is any difference between the two we can see it more easily than in more complex systems." For it to become usable for research positronium has to be frozen yet further, to around -260C, but the laser approach has given researchers a way forward, according to Prof Michael Charlton, an expert in positronium at Swansea University, who was not involved in the current breakthrough.
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