Production
These exotic atoms can be produced by simply mixing antiprotons with ordinary helium gas; the antiproton spontaneously removes one of the two electrons contained in a normal helium atom in a chemical reaction, and then begins to orbit the helium nucleus in the electron's place. This will happen in the case of approximately 3% of the antiprotons introduced to the helium gas. The antiproton's orbit, which has a large principal quantum number and angular momentum quantum number of around 38, lies far away from the surface of the helium nucleus. The antiproton can thus orbit the nucleus for tens of microseconds, before finally falling to its surface and annihilating. This long lifetime is seen only in the case of antiprotons mixed in helium; in all other substances, antiprotons annihilate a million times faster, in less than a picosecond.
Read more about this topic: Antiprotonic Helium
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“To expect to increase prices and then to maintain them at a higher level by means of a plan which must of necessity increase production while decreasing consumption is to fly in the face of an economic law as well established as any law of nature.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)