antiparticle beams

[dragonstar57]

if you somehow designed a positron (ignoring all the issues with this statement)

and were in a complete vacuum (like space) and shot it at something the beam would annihilate with the electrons and possibly blowup whatever you are aiming at

but if you had 3 beams (1 firring a positron beam 1 firring a anti neutron beam and one firring a anti-proton (or as some people call it incorrectly a negatron) would it annihilate the whole object.

or would it be beater to just fire 2 intersecting beams one a positron beam and one a electron beam. kind of like the M.D or little doctor in ender's game

[swansont]

In principle you could, but once the annihilation started, you might have trouble getting the antiparticles to actually hit. As long as you're hypothesizing, why not just go with anti-ions in a beam?

[Mr Skeptic]

If you destroy all the electrons in a sample via annihilation, you will end up with hot plasma. Without the electrons to hold things together nothing could withstand such a beam. If you use antiprotons in your beam, the same will happen but you will get a radioactive plasma instead.

[dragonstar57]

but would this plasma 1 have gravity

and 2 cause damage if it hit something?

and why would mater consisting of just electrons and neutrons be radioactive?

Edited August 31, 2010 by cipher510

[vordhosbn]

If you destroy only electrons (with positron beam) you will end up with stripped atom nuclei (plasma). If you destroy protons, you will cause nuclear fission and hence the radioactivity.

 

Why wouldn't plasma have gravity?

[swansont]

The plasma would have gravity, but it would be negligible in effect — the electrostatic interaction is far stronger.

 

The radioactivity would be from the leftover neutrons, which are unstable. However, you'd only have to worry about the neutron decay if you survived the initial barrage from the ~1 GeV gammas from the proton-antiproton annihilation.

[Mr Skeptic]

Why wouldn't plasma have gravity?

 

He did the same thing in a different thread. I think he either does not realize how small the gravitational constant is, or doesn't realize how heavy earth is.

[dragonstar57]

i'm just wondering if the gravity of such a plasma cloud would be enough to keep it together and if it could be a potentially dangerous ie by hiting something

Edited August 31, 2010 by cipher510

[vordhosbn]

Hint: Stars are made out of plasma.

[dragonstar57]

but stars are freaking huge i'm talcking about a space ship or asteroid

not something thats near even half a solar mass

[Mr Skeptic]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_law_of_universal_gravitation

 

There you go. Study up, learn something. Plug in some masses into that equation and see how strong gravity is.