My Death Ray Awaits!

[vianegativa]

An exotic molecule built from electrons and antimatter is being touted as a route to powerful gamma-ray lasers.

An electron can hook up with its antiparticle, the positron, to form a hydrogen-like atom called positronium (Ps). It survives for less than 150 nanoseconds before it is annihilated in a puff of gamma radiation. It was known that two positronium atoms should be able to bind together to form a molecule, called Ps₂, and now David Cassidy and Allen Mills from the University of California, Riverside, have made that happen. First, they trapped positrons in a thin film of porous silica. Those positrons captured electrons to form positronium atoms, and the pattern of decay rates signalled that some of these atoms had teamed up to form Ps₂ (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature06094).

If positronium atoms could be forced to merge into a kind of "super-atom" condensate, it would decay in bursts of identical gamma rays, which could lead to gamma-ray lasers a million times more powerful than standard lasers. "It's like comparing a chemical explosion with a nuclear explosion," Cassidy says.

From issue 2621 of New Scientist magazine, 18 September 2007, page 23

Comments

[jrjarrett.livejournal.com]

We could build one of these
<airquotes>lasers</airquotes>
and call it
<airquotes>The Alan Parsons Project</airquotes>

I know what to put on my Christmas list now.

[mrsarcastic.livejournal.com]

Am I the only one who is a little freaked out by the concept of a "death" ray? Eek!

[benpanced.livejournal.com]

and now David Cassidy and Allen Mills from the University of California, Riverside

I liked Danny Bonaduce better. He's teh dreamy.

[grunter.livejournal.com]

"It's like comparing a chemical explosion with a nuclear explosion," I says.

[vianegativa.livejournal.com]

Stop! Can't you just be a lawyer? Now're you're a leading high-energy physics researcher? What's next? Proctologist?

(oh, yeah. You already have that covered.. *ducks*)

:-)

[grunter.livejournal.com]

As gay men, should we not all aspire to putting as many fingers in as many butts as possible? In such a light, could not proctology be considered our collective "higher calling?"

[lilotter.livejournal.com]

Sounds like something you would see at www.coasttocoastam.com

[ui-tomcat.livejournal.com]

Isn't that how Bruce Banner turned into the Hulk?