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What is antimatter, and what are some of its properties ?

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Last updated date: 07th Sep 2024
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Answer
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Hint: There is an antiparticle for almost every particle. Charged particles, in fact, have an anti-particle that has the opposite charge. Any uncharged particles are anti-particles to themselves.

Complete answer:
Antimatter is made up of particles that have the same charge as regular matter.Protons, neutrons, and electrons make up the bulk of ordinary matter. Protons have a positive charge, while antiprotons have a negative charge. The antielectron, or positron, is positively charged, while the electron is negatively charged. Neutrons and anti-neutrons both have no charge.

Antiprotons, antineutrons, and positrons make up antimatter. According to the well-known mass–energy equivalence equation, $E = m{c^2}$, the volume of energy emitted is normally proportional to the total mass of the collided matter and antimatter.

A particle and its antiparticle (for example, a proton and an antiproton) have the same mass but opposite electric charges and other quantum number variations in theory. An antiproton, for example, has a negative charge while a proton has a positive charge.

As antimatter collides with matter, it annihilates them, leaving only pure energy behind.Apart from the fact that antiparticles have different signs on all charges (such as electric and baryon charges), there are compelling theoretical reasons to assume that matter and antimatter have identical properties. This implies that the masses and decay lifetimes of a particle and its antiparticle must be the same (if unstable).

Note: Any particle colliding with its antiparticle partner causes mutual annihilation, resulting in varying proportions of strong photons (gamma rays), neutrinos, and sometimes less-massive particle–antiparticle pairs. Ionizing radiation is responsible for the bulk of the total energy released during annihilation.