Abstract
An exciting prospect is the use of antimatter as a fuel source due to its ability to convert mass energy to kinetic energy. Upon annihilation of antimatter with matter, tremendous amounts of energy are carried away by charged and neutral particles. By redirecting the charged particles through an exhaust using a non-uniform magnetic field, an impulse can be generated capable of supplying thrust to an engine. Using the Geant 4 simulation toolkit developed by CERN, we simulate this process using a beam core engine design. By analyzing charged pions that result from antiproton-proton annihilation, we optimize the engine parameters and derive a specific impulse for antiproton fuel as used in the beam core configuration. A specific impulse of (2.49 ± 0.08) × 106 s was determined. This value is significantly higher than specific impulses of current chemical rocket fuels which range from 240 - 400 s.
Highlights
Ever since its proposed existence in 1922, antimatter has held a fascinating place in both the sciences and science fiction
Since gammas are electrically neutral, they cannot be redirected by the magnetic field and make a negligible contribution to the impulse imparted to the engine
Optimized Value 23 MeV 18.0 T 0.5 T 2.25 m 2.25 m 85 %. This simulation has shown that antimatter has exceedingly great potential as a fuel source for interstellar travel
Summary
Ever since its proposed existence in 1922, antimatter has held a fascinating place in both the sciences and science fiction. Basic rocket physics dictates that in order to maximize the amount of velocity gained by a rocket, the mass of the rocket must be as low as possible For this reason, a fuel with high specific impulse is important as more thrust can be produced with a lesser amount of fuel mass. Keane and Zhang first utilized a modern version of Geant to simulate and optimize the antimatter beam core engine design in 2012 [2]. Optimization plots for each parameter are shown as well as relevant kinematic data for the final optimized state From this data, an argument is made for the effectiveness of an antimatter powered engine compared to traditional and other theoretical propulsion techniques as well as a comparison to the previous simulation done by Keane and Zhang
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