Mass production of Positrons (Anti-matter)

Why is this topic not discussed? There were a few hints dropped by various members that frequent the aviation forums. Cough cough, he likes to play bass. Now let’s get into the nitty gritty.

What if you had a bucket full of anti-matter? What would you do with this? There was a keynote presentation delivered by Kenneth Edwards about this very topic.

What is missing is how it is done. How can you possibly create an unlimited amount of anti-matter without say a big particle accelerator?

What if I also told you that gamma radiation can be directly converted into usable electricity via nano photo cells?

Now the question is. If I were the US what would I do with the ability to create on-demand positrons and control their containment?
Well, build a directed gamma energy weapon of course, aka an anti-matter bomb. Oh wait though, what if another country now also had this ability. Well it’s about time they caught up since the US has had this ability to create positrons on demand since the 80s.

President Bush gave the first order to use it on North Korea and one has to wonder if Trump will use it again. Funny thing about it is that it is delivered via an aerial vehicle. So which vehicle has the ability to penetrate deep into enemy airspace without being noticed by conventional and non-conventional radar? ;-)

The process is a lot simpler than anyone ever realized. Fire a femtosecond laser at an element like gold and instantly produce positrons. Fire it at other "elements" and produce many orders of magnitude more. Could it really be that simple? Maybe.....

a reply to: Bornsecrets
Do you have any links to a story?

a reply to: butcherguy

The Ryanggang explosion was a large explosion that took place in North Korea on 9 September 2004 in the northern province of Ryanggang. The nature and cause of the suspected explosion is the subject of speculation. No neighboring nations have claimed any detection of radioactive isotopes characteristic of a nuclear explosion.

a reply to: Bornsecrets

What would be the advantage of using this type of weapon over more common munitions?

I think they'd probably use some type of stealth drone that could fly low enough to not be picked up by regular radar, probably from South Korea or a ship nearby.

originally posted by: Bornsecrets
The process is a lot simpler than anyone ever realized. Fire a femtosecond laser at an element like gold and instantly produce positrons.

The production of positrons is slow and cost is coming down but to match the yield of a 10 MT hydrogen bomb would take 2.5 million years of anti-matter production and huge amounts of energy.

web.archive.org...

12) Can you build antimatter bombs?

A: No. The destructive power of a 10 MT hydrogen bomb (of which several thousand exist) corresponds to about 250 g of antimatter. It would take 2.5 million years of the entire energy production of the Earth to produce this amount.

I'm not sure if that answer is 100% correct however it does put to perspective the reasons why it's unlikely antimatter weapons will be competitive with other nuclear weapons anytime soon. Maybe as technology continues to evolve antimatter weapons might become more feasible, but they are still too expensive and use too much energy to produce compared to existing nuclear weapons. 250 grams of positrons is a huge amount of positrons.

Just a guess, but if we were able to generate positrons on demand, we could do things like positron emission tomography:

en.wikipedia.org...

gamma rays and positrons don't travel far through the air, so lasers and masers are the way to go.

originally posted by: Bornsecrets
a reply to: butcherguy

The Ryanggang explosion was a large explosion that took place in North Korea on 9 September 2004 in the northern province of Ryanggang. The nature and cause of the suspected explosion is the subject of speculation. No neighboring nations have claimed any detection of radioactive isotopes characteristic of a nuclear explosion.

NK claimed that it was a demolition of a mountainside by conventional explosives and even allowed diplomats from 7 different nations to visit the construction site seven days after the detonation.

In 2004, it would be unlikely that North Korea would have been capable of causing even a conventional atomic explosion. They didn't test any atomic weapons until 2006.

Have you ever heard of a P.E.T. scan? Positrons are used in medicine all the time.

Why do you think that close to light speed propulsion is the biggest secret in technology?

You can't just allow idiots to build these things, an object the size of a grapefruit could provoke a planetwide catastrophe.

a reply to: chr0naut

Which they would have been hard at work on in 2004. They would have had to be well into testing at the time the explosion happened. And it would have added time to the development. I've had several people tell me how convenient the timing was, as quite a bit of fairly high end plutonium was in the area of the blast, as were several of the people involved in developing the bomb.

...you have my attention...

Anti matter in contact with matter will probably act like drop of water on hot stove plate. Probably interesting firework but no explosion.

originally posted by: Jonjonj
Why do you think that close to light speed propulsion is the biggest secret in technology?

You can't just allow idiots to build these things, an object the size of a grapefruit could provoke a planetwide catastrophe.

Because a country with technology that had near light speed and antimatter weapons would not be kept secret. They would be almost unbeatable. Because it would be so incredibly advanced and unprecedented, their technology would have to be demonstrated to be believed.

The threat of such capability would give the country leverage and power. If it was kept secret, then there would be no advantage for the country. There is a possibility that other countries might also independently achieve the same level of technology if they simply hold on to the secret and don't take advantage of it at the first instance.

a reply to: chr0naut

Only if they could get them to work reliably. There are other possibilities that have been developed by more than one nation. In which case keeping them secret makes sense.

Antimatter is tricky to deal with and has the potential for some interesting accidents.

originally posted by: JanAmosComenius
Anti matter in contact with matter will probably act like drop of water on hot stove plate. Probably interesting firework but no explosion.

46.5 milligrams of antimatter per kiloton of yield, and 46.5 grams per megaton.

So, umm...

No.

a reply to: chr0naut

No you completely misunderstand. It is Pandora's box level technology.

originally posted by: JanAmosComenius
Anti matter in contact with matter will probably act like drop of water on hot stove plate. Probably interesting firework but no explosion.

With matter / anti-matter interactions, particles cancel out at the quark and electron level. Anti-Helium and ordinary matter would knock the nucleus of the regular atom down by two protons, two neutrons and four electrons.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: chr0naut

Which they would have been hard at work on in 2004. They would have had to be well into testing at the time the explosion happened. And it would have added time to the development. I've had several people tell me how convenient the timing was, as quite a bit of fairly high end plutonium was in the area of the blast, as were several of the people involved in developing the bomb.

If you have the weapons grade actinides in volume, then a nuclear detonation, say by a gun-assembled device, is easy and relatively quick to produce. A small country could probably assemble a working bomb within hours (there are also a few minor technical details that it isn't prudent to mention in a public forum).

The issue is the time it takes to accrue and refine the materials to weapons grade.

a reply to: Bornsecrets

Generation of positrons for PET is generally achieved through using a cyclotron. Technology is relatively low cost and freely available. Target materials are simply bombarded with a stream of accelerated protons to produce a selected isotope.

There are a number of different isotopes of interest both scientifically and commercially but the most common is 18Fluorine.

With a fairly standard cyclotron such as a PETtrace you can generate approx 500 GBq of 18F in 2 hours, essentially at this decay rate you are getting 5 x10 exp 11 positrons emitted through the decay of 18F to 18O per second. Still given that rate of production it would take an eternity to generate a mole of positrons. Then given the mass of an electron and assuming a positron is equivalent at 9x10 exp -31 kg it would take some time to make 1 g!

Would make a good pop if you did tho

Even then the issue is not generating positrons it's capturing the positrons - they under go an annihilation reaction with any matter they come in contact with. So you can't really stick it in a bottle - unless it's electromagnetic.

Tricky at best imho

Bob

a reply to: chr0naut

Developing the material and testing the device, starting from scratch takes years of development. If it was easy more than nation stateswould have them. They had to test all the parts, then put them together. You don't go to work in January, and detonate a device on your first try in April, even if you've already got all the materials.

They detonated their first device in 2006, and are still having issues with reliability with their current devices.