Matter–Antimatter Relativistic Ambiplasma Pinch

Abstract

An ambiplasma is a plasma made from matter and antimatter. We study here the property of such plasma at relativistic energy, which is made of counterstreaming electron and positron beams, and its extension to a hydrogen-antihydrogen ambiplasma pinch configuration, where the pinch current is made up from counterstreaming electrons and positrons at relativistic energy. Being very much as intense as relativistic electron beams, which are largely immune against the classical pinch instabilities, the same can hopefully be expected for the counterstreaming relativistic electron and positron beams. By radiation cooling, such electron-positron ambiplasma can collapse to a very small diameter, which, in the limit, is determined by Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, reaching enormous densities. Because the counterstreaming electrons and positrons move at relativistic energy, their cross section for mutual annihilation is substantially reduced, making the lifetime of this ambiplasma large in comparison with the pinch implosion time. In a similar way, one can obtain a proton-antiproton ambiplasma pinch with two counterstreaming intense multigigaelectronvolt proton and antiproton beams. To overcome the technical problem to create such beams, as an easier way, one may consider a hydrogen-antihydrogen ambiplasma pinch where only the electrons and positrons carry the current. The current is produced by electron-positron runaway through the application of a high voltage pulse from a super Marx generator.