Researchers at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider – a particle accelerator at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York used to recreate and study conditions of the early universe – have for the first time detected the antimatter partner of the helium nucleus: antihelium-4. The new particle, also known as the anti-alpha, is the heaviest antinucleus ever detected, and will probably remain so for quite awhile, given the fact the next weightier antimatter nucleus that does not undergo radioactive decay is predicted to be a million times more rare – and thus out of reach of today’s technology.“Barring a new breakthrough in accelerator technology, or the discovery of a completely new production mechanism, it is likely that antihelium-4 will remain the heaviest stable antimatter nucleus observed for the foreseeable future,” confirms Steven Vigdor, Brookhaven’s Associate Lab Director for Nuclear and Particle Physics, who leads the RHIC program. Meanwhile, rumors are swirling around an aberration at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider that may or may not signal the “God particle.”
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