Quote:
Originally Posted by lwcamp
You can levitate several gram objects with fields of around 15 tesla, such as the frog mentioned in a previous post
http://www.ru.nl/hfml/research/levitation/diamagnetic/
because the electromagnetic force does not care about whether something is matter or antimatter (C, or charge conjugation, symmetry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-symmetry), several grams of antimatter would be subject to the same force by the same field.
Bulk, charge neutral antimatter would experience no additional forces compared to bulk charge neutral matter. There is no special attraction between antimatter and matter that does not exist between matter itself (that is, the antimatter's matter counterpart would be just as attracted or repelled from another piece of matter as the antimatter itself). C-symmetry again. A lump of anti-lithium (or an anti-frog) would be levitated against Earth's gravity by the same strength field (although an anti-frog would need anti-air around it to breathe, which might have adverse consequences on your magnets).
Luke |
I'm a bit concerned by using levitation as a proxy for confinement. Especially in context, we're talking about confining antimatter aboard a vessel that's at least sometimes in freefall and sometimes accelerating in various ways. You can't count on a consistent gravity field as part of your system.