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Paul F. Dietz wrote:
The penultimate link on that roundup, the one about the WMAP haze and dark matter, is very interesting. The theory being proposed is that dark matter is quark matter in small chunks (about a ton each) at nuclear densities. So far, that's not new. What's new is the proposal that this stuff is predominately antimatter, with the haze being powered by annihilation, and that the observed matter/antimatter asymmetry is due to preferential segregation of antimatter into these nuggets by some CP-violating process in the early universe.
Ton-scale chunks of antimatter at nuclear density would be wonderful energy sources for use in space: just expose them to dilute normal matter gas. You don't have the finicky handling problems of antihydrogen; this stuff stays together even as annihilation occurs fiercely at its surface.
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This page contains a single entry by Rand Simberg published on March 7, 2008 8:40 AM.
The penultimate link on that roundup, the one about the WMAP haze and dark matter, is very interesting. The theory being proposed is that dark matter is quark matter in small chunks (about a ton each) at nuclear densities. So far, that's not new. What's new is the proposal that this stuff is predominately antimatter, with the haze being powered by annihilation, and that the observed matter/antimatter asymmetry is due to preferential segregation of antimatter into these nuggets by some CP-violating process in the early universe.
Ton-scale chunks of antimatter at nuclear density would be wonderful energy sources for use in space: just expose them to dilute normal matter gas. You don't have the finicky handling problems of antihydrogen; this stuff stays together even as annihilation occurs fiercely at its surface.