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The antiproton, , (pronounced p-bar) is the antiparticle of the proton. Antiprotons are stable, but they are typically short-lived, since any collision with a proton will cause both particles to be annihilation in a burst of energy.
The existence of the antiproton with electric charge of , opposite to the electric charge of of the proton, was predicted by Paul Dirac in his 1933 Nobel Prize lecture.
The antiproton was first experimentally confirmed in 1955 at the Bevatron particle accelerator by University of California, Berkeley Emilio Segrè and Owen Chamberlain, for which they were awarded the 1959 Nobel Prize in Physics.
In terms of , an antiproton consists of two up quark antiquarks and one down quark antiquark (). The properties of the antiproton that have been measured all match the corresponding properties of the proton, with the exception that the antiproton has electric charge and magnetic moment that are the opposites of those in the proton, which is to be expected from the antimatter equivalent of a proton. The questions of how matter is different from antimatter, and the relevance of antimatter in explaining how our universe survived the Big Bang, remain open problems—open, in part, due to the relative scarcity of antimatter in today's universe.
+ A → + + + A
The secondary antiprotons () then propagate through the galaxy, confined by the galactic . Their energy spectrum is modified by collisions with other atoms in the interstellar medium, and antiprotons can also be lost by "leaking out" of the galaxy.
The antiproton cosmic ray energy spectrum is now measured reliably and is consistent with this standard picture of antiproton production by cosmic ray collisions. These experimental measurements set upper limits on the number of antiprotons that could be produced in exotic ways, such as from annihilation of Supersymmetry dark matter particles in the galaxy or from the Hawking radiation caused by the evaporation of primordial black holes. This also provides a lower limit on the antiproton lifetime of about 1–10 million years. Since the galactic storage time of antiprotons is about 10 million years, an intrinsic decay lifetime would modify the galactic residence time and distort the spectrum of cosmic ray antiprotons. This is significantly more stringent than the best laboratory measurements of the antiproton lifetime:
The magnitude of properties of the antiproton are predicted by CPT symmetry to be exactly related to those of the proton. In particular, CPT symmetry predicts the mass and lifetime of the antiproton to be the same as those of the proton, and the electric charge and magnetic moment of the antiproton to be opposite in sign and equal in magnitude to those of the proton. CPT symmetry is a basic consequence of quantum field theory and no violations of it have ever been detected.
Formation of antiprotons requires energy equivalent to a temperature of 10 trillion Kelvin (1013 K), and this does not tend to happen naturally. However, at CERN, protons are accelerated in the Proton Synchrotron to an energy of 26 gigaelectron volt and then smashed into an iridium rod. The protons bounce off the iridium nuclei with enough energy for matter to be created. A range of particles and antiparticles are formed, and the antiprotons are separated off using magnets in vacuum.
In October 2017, scientists working on the BASE experiment at CERN reported a measurement of the antiproton magnetic moment to a precision of 1.5 parts per billion. It is consistent with the most precise measurement of the proton magnetic moment (also made by BASE in 2014), which supports the hypothesis of CPT symmetry. This measurement represents the first time that a property of antimatter is known more precisely than the equivalent property in matter.
In January 2022, by comparing the charge-to-mass ratios between antiproton and negatively charged hydrogen ion, the BASE experiment has determined the antiproton's charge-to-mass ratio is identical to the proton's, down to 16 parts per trillion.
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