Physicists first got matter from pure energy

Scientists working on the STAR detector at Brookhaven National Laboratory in the United States reported that they

managed to obtain convincing evidencetwo physical phenomena predicted more than 80 years ago—the formation of matter directly from light and that magnetism could bend polarized photons in a vacuum. The research results were published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

STAR physicists tracked interactionsand looked for predicted electron-positron pairs. But such pairs of particles can be created, including with the help of short-term states of “virtual” photons. To distinguish real photons from virtual ones, the authors analyzed the patterns of the angular distribution of each electron in relation to its positron partner. These distribution patterns differ for pairs formed by the interaction of real and virtual photons.

The main discovery is that coupleselectrons and positrons particles of matter and antimatter can be created directly by colliding very energetic photons, which are quantum “packets” of light. This conversion of energetic light into matter is a direct consequence of Einstein's famous equation E = mc², which states that energy and matter (or mass) are interchangeable. Nuclear reactions in the sun and in nuclear power plants regularly convert matter into energy. Now scientists have converted light energy directly into matter in just one step.

The second result shows that the path of light,passing through a magnetic field in a vacuum, bends differently depending on how the light is polarized. This polarization-dependent deflection (known as birefringence) occurs when light passes through certain materials. (This effect is similar to the way wavelength-dependent deflection splits white light into a rainbow.) But this is the first demonstration of polarization-dependent deflection of light in a vacuum.

Both results resulted from the abilitydetector RHIC STAR —Solenoid Tracker in RHIC —measure the angular distribution of particles formed during sliding collisions of gold ions moving almost at the speed of light.

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