RE: When Elena met Isolde, aka the antimatter CERN tour on the back of a puma

[tfcoates]

So does this mean matter and anti-matter respond the same way to magnetic fields? There are no such things as anti-magnetic fields?

Comments

[lemouth]

The answer is yes and no. They respond in the same way as the laws that are used are the same. However, those laws involve the electric charge that is opposite. Therefore, the effect will be different.

But there is no antimagnetic field. Electromagnetism does not care of the particle/antiparticle nature of the objects.

[tfcoates]

Thanks for clearing that up! I think it makes sense... though I'm surprised there's no anti-elecromagnetism... the logic in my first-year-uni-physics mind goes as follows (and is probably very incorrect).

• The flow of electrons is what makes electricity
• ... and the flow of electricity is what produces magnetic fields
• .... then the flow of the anti-matter equivelent of an electron (a positron?) should produce an anti-magnetic field....

Though now I break it down like that... perhaps the production of a magnetic field depends only on the movement of a charge, and therfor the flow of a positron in direction a would simple produce the opposite magnetic field as the flow of an electron in direction a... am I close here?

[lemouth]

At the end of the comment, you are right.

Maxwell equations (electromagnetism) depend on the charge of the (anti)particle. Therefore, the same equations are used regardless of the matter/antimatter nature of the particle. In some equation, you will have a +e and in other a -e, that's it. Magnetism stays the same (the same laws are used). From the same laws, we will derive the magnetic field (and its direction will be different).