I'm new here so humour me if this has already been discussed. Could someone please explain some possibilities for our present matter/antimatter situation? i.e. why we have so much of one and so little of the other? Also, could someone please present some evidence for why there isn't (or can't be) large quantities of antimatter elsewhere in the universe? I couldn't find anything to disprove the notion that though there aren't large amounts of antimatter in our local vicinity (hence a lack of detected largescale annihilation), elsewhere in the universe antimatter could be abundant. Unexplained gamma rays--could those be antimatter sources? I haven't researched this as much as I probably should but I figured this was as good a source for conjectures as any. =) Thank you.
>>> (matter and antimatter) "...why we have so much of one and so little of the other?" Well, right now the only conjecture that I'm aware of is that there was an asymmetry in the production of the two, on the order of (10^9+1) Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!10^9). There is no known reason for this, it's just an ad hoc explanation for now.... although I have heard something about the weak nucllear force having some sort of preference for matter over antimatter. >>> "Also, could someone please present some evidence for why there isn't (or can't be) large quantities of antimatter elsewhere in the universe?" Nope. Don't know that there is a good reason other than statistics. What are the odds of having such a good split? (of course, this is a pathetic argument in light of the odds of certain other unlikely events. Given an infinite set, odds produce everything infinitely.) >>> "Unexplained gamma rays--could those be antimatter sources?" Sure, it's possible, but the mutual annihilation in this example produces specific energies. The spectrum observed for GRB's (and any other gr phenomena so far observed) doesn't match that of m.-a.m. annihilation. ------------------ Este est percepi - to be is to be perceived. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! -R.
