Chapter 436 Antimatter Production

After letting go of this concern, Yu Yifeng turned his attention to another major event: the development of gas giant planets.

The scientific investigation of Auriga 2 is going well, and the industry on Auriga 4 is not particularly difficult. However, the development of the gaseous planet "Auriga 5" is the first time.

"The theoretical difficulty is not high."

The development of gas giant planets is an important link in the industrial chain. It involves the energy issues of the entire new human industrial chain, and people cannot be careless.

Everyone understands the principle of sitting still and taking advantage of nothing. It is impossible to persist indefinitely just relying on the helium-3 reserves in Noah.

Therefore, related gas collection spacecraft are being constructed with great fanfare.

"If we can successfully develop this gaseous planet, we will obtain almost endless nuclear fuel. There is too much energy... We can even build a luxurious antimatter production base to consume this extra energy."

A group of scientists were eating and chatting in the cafeteria, led by Professor Ding Yidong.

He is not only a weapons expert, but also a very famous nuclear physicist who knows a lot about the reactions between atoms.

Ding Yidong said in his usual loud voice: "We can now use specific laser collisions to produce antimatter... We need to do more research on the conversion rate in this area to improve the energy utilization rate as much as possible. If we put in the effort, we can just It’s absolutely impossible to produce a few micrograms of antimatter.”

To be honest, people did not pay much attention to the research on antimatter in the past.

Because antimatter has almost the same properties as positive matter except for its opposite electrical properties. In other words, spending a huge amount of money to study antimatter with similar properties is not of particularly great significance.

"But the main value of antimatter is... it is an important secondary energy source, the main trading unit of interstellar civilization, and can also be used to make weapons beyond nuclear bombs - antimatter missiles."

The energy density of antimatter is two orders of magnitude higher than that of nuclear fuel, which means that the power of this weapon is also two orders of magnitude higher than that of nuclear weapons.

There may be some unique antimatter fountains in the Milky Way, but such antimatter fountains require a very strange geographical environment. They are often located near black holes and require extremely high levels of technology to collect.

The vast majority of antimatter is produced by interstellar civilizations themselves.

Therefore, scientists are discussing how to use excess energy to produce antimatter.

"...so as not to end up with empty pockets like a poor man when trading in the future. We always have to deal with interstellar civilizations, so we can't trade cheap helium-3... This thing must be worthless. ”

said a scientist, who is also responsible for the Ministry of Industry, with a smile. They had discussed this matter many times.

There are many ways to produce antimatter. The simplest, of course, is to produce high-energy particles through an accelerator, hit a fixed target to produce antiparticles, and then decelerate and synthesize them. However, the energy required for this process is much greater than the energy released by annihilation, and the rate of antimatter generation is extremely low.

The second method, of course, is to use laser.

When electrons and positrons meet, an annihilation reaction occurs, forming two high-energy photons. This is the energy release principle of antimatter.

In fact, this process is reversible, that is to say, after two powerful laser beams collide, the collision between photons can also forcibly convert energy into matter.

If at this moment, a larger magnetic field is used to quickly separate the generated antimatter and antimatter with different charges, people can obtain a considerable amount of antimatter.

"It's just that the current mass-to-energy conversion efficiency is extremely low. Not just any collision of two lasers can produce matter, nor is the bigger the energy, the better... We must find a more suitable laser... Research in this area To speed up."

However, scientists are not worried. According to the current level, a small amount of antimatter can definitely be produced. It is just a matter of energy utilization. This utilization rate should be able to increase as experience increases.

Solving the problem of manufacturing and preservation...

The preservation of antimatter is of course inseparable from vacuum and magnetic fields.

"I still suggest that we only produce the simplest form of antimatter, 'positrons'. The vacuum technology of our accelerator is relatively mature. It can reach extremely high vacuum in the beam tube and can be stored for a long time."

After Professor Ding Yidong calculated a few data in his head, he said: "In addition, annihilation does not happen as soon as it is touched. There is also the problem of annihilation cross section. In an environment with a high degree of vacuum, high-energy electrons can run very far. Annihilation will occur. Just do a simple calculation. The specific formula for the annihilation reaction is... N=sigma*rho*velocity..."

"So we'd better build a device like a superconducting tokamak to magnetically confine antimatter... In terms of difficulty... there should be no problem."

After this discussion, people suddenly discovered that the technology for producing and preserving antimatter has quietly matured, but it still lacks a little practical experience.

This fact makes people secretly sigh that the technological progress of human beings in the past few hundred years is really too great.

Scientific development sometimes requires gradual steps, and sometimes it requires leaps and bounds. The reason is not only the extraterrestrial garbage picked up, but also the social system, material affluence, and materialistic ideas that worship natural science, which have greatly promoted the scientific process.

Think about it, scientists in the Earth period had very limited resources at hand. If they wanted to do experiments, especially high-energy experiments, they had to go through various approvals and were subject to various funding constraints.

But now there is no such thing. Every scientist has gained great freedom, and the consumption of scientific research has long been far greater than the consumption of ordinary life.

For the Noah Society, the degree of attention paid to natural science is far greater than any other aspect, including various entertainment products, military industry... It is almost an era in which the whole nation worships science. Such an academic atmosphere is unmatched by any country or university in the Earth period.

In this case, if science cannot make rapid progress, there is only one situation: this civilization has touched its upper limit...

Soon, six months passed quietly, and the first nuclear fuel collection spacecraft was officially completed. It has sailed on the way to the gas planet "Auriga 5".

Today is the day when this spacecraft officially arrives at the gas planet. Under the huge control room, more than 300 staff members are sitting seriously.

Among them are engineers and scientists. They have serious expressions and stare at the big screen nervously.

The length of this spacecraft is about 300 meters, and it looks like a barrel-like cylinder. Facing the gaseous planet that is about to arrive, "Auriga 5" is as small as a mosquito.

"Regarding the antimatter you mentioned... Is it safe after it is produced? What I am mainly worried about is the storage problem. The magnetic confinement alone seems a bit weak, and a superconducting ring is needed for continuous power supply..."

"What if there is a power outage and it is accidentally released and explodes?"

Yu Yifeng frowned as he listened to Professor Ding Yidong's next plan.

Although he also longed for various antimatter weapons, he had to care about the more important safety issues.

The card phenomenon is extremely serious... I want to take a break during the May Day holiday. . .