Where has all the Anti-matter Gone?
There is a puzzle about our universe that has perplexed physicists for the last 80 years: Where is all the anti-matter? After all, it is believed that the Big Bang resulted in equal parts matter and anti-matter being produced. So where did the anti-matter go and why did nature select matter over anti-matter for our universe?
Dr. Jeffery Martin, Canada Research Chair in Fundamental Symmetries in Subatomic Physics, believes the answer may lie in the study of neutrons.
It has been theorized that if neutrons are found to possess an electric dipole moment—a separation of positive and negative electrical charges inside them—then correspondingly matter and its counterpart anti-matter must be even more different than we ever realized.
Martin is leading a joint Canada-Japan effort that will conduct the best measurement ever of the neutron electric dipole moment. The project is possible because of Martin's leadership in the creation of the world's highest density source of ultracold neutrons, which will be built at TRIUMF, Canada's National Laboratory for Particle and Nuclear Science, in Vancouver.
If Martin discovers a non-zero electric dipole moment, it will revolutionize our understanding of the connection between particle physics and the universe.