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What will happen if we somehow create an "anti-sodium "element and react it with "hydrogen"(not anti)?

I am specific about ANTI-SODIUM and HYDROGEN. Not just plain matter and antimatter.

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  • $\begingroup$ There is no such thing as "pure energy". Energy is the ability of a system to perform work. Energy is not "a thing", but it's a property of a system. When you annihilate matter with anti-matter, what comes out are other particles and light, all of which have energy, but they are not energy themselves. See physics.stackexchange.com/questions/39293/… and the duplicates therein. $\endgroup$
    – CuriousOne
    Commented Apr 17, 2016 at 5:16
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    $\begingroup$ Possible duplicate of What is "pure energy" in matter-antimatter annihilation made of? $\endgroup$
    – CuriousOne
    Commented Apr 17, 2016 at 5:19
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    $\begingroup$ @CuriousOne i will correct that "pure energy" but my question is not duplicate as i am talking about specific elememts and the link has just matter and antimatter. $\endgroup$
    – user114592
    Commented Apr 17, 2016 at 5:19
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    $\begingroup$ It is not the elements that are annihilating but the particles in them, i.e. you get electron/positron and quark/antiquark reactions, which will produce mesons and then photons, again: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…. There are more detailed articles for physicists, like "Proton-Antiproton Annihilation and Meson Spectroscopy with the Crystal Barrel∗" by Claude Amsler. You do retain a remaining nucleus or fragments thereof, of course. $\endgroup$
    – CuriousOne
    Commented Apr 17, 2016 at 5:24
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    $\begingroup$ @HariPrasad I got my answer :) $\endgroup$
    – user114592
    Commented Apr 17, 2016 at 6:12

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The annihilation of electrons and positrons goes cleanly to two photons, but the annihilation of brayons and antibaryons is a far more complicated process. This is because baryons are composite particles made up from (on average) three quarks. I discuss this in Are there different kinds of antimatter reactions?, where I show that a proton-antiproton annihilation can produce a spray of nine charged particles:

Proton-antiproton annihilation

In your question you ask about the reaction of a proton with an anti-sodium nucleus, and this is likely to be even messier. The complete annihilation of a proton and antiproton could liberate up to 2GeV of energy, but the binding energy of the nucleons in a sodium nucleus is only about 8 - 9 MeV per nucleon, which is two hundred times smaller.

The result is likely to be that the annihilation will disrupt the anti-sodium nucleus and produce a spray of pions and anti-alpha particles. Exactly what would happen is hard to predict, but it would be messy. It's very, very unlikely that the proton would neatly annihilate a single antiproton in the anti-sodium nucleus to leave anti-neon.

Although we've never made an anti-sodium nucleus, the reaction would be the same as an antiproton reacting with sodium except with the particles and antiparticles switched and of course we could do this experiment. However I've been unable to find any data on antiproton-sodium reactions.

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  • $\begingroup$ I agree John..So the conclusion from the discussion is that we cannot "exactly" predict at this stage what happens to them? $\endgroup$
    – user114592
    Commented Apr 17, 2016 at 14:00
  • $\begingroup$ There are measurements on LEAR at CERN for what happens when scattering low energy antiprotons on iron, for example, and the theory fits the scattering and penetration distributions. By CPT protons on antiiron would behave the same way, except you cannot really make antiiron in the lab. $\endgroup$
    – anna v
    Commented Apr 17, 2016 at 14:41
  • $\begingroup$ Ok so that's the case @annav $\endgroup$
    – user114592
    Commented Apr 17, 2016 at 15:18
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We would get anti-Neon... and some anti-fluorine from hydrogen anti-Neon collission

Ref: https://www.quora.com/If-I-could-manage-to-fill-a-glass-with-anti-hydrogen-and-mixed-it-with-an-equal-amount-of-water-would-it-produce-oxygen

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    $\begingroup$ Maybe. Maybe not. Do they have any citations to nuclear physics calculations or experiments to back this up? $\endgroup$
    – CuriousOne
    Commented Apr 17, 2016 at 6:24
  • $\begingroup$ I don't think they have such calculations. $\endgroup$
    – user114592
    Commented Apr 17, 2016 at 14:01
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    $\begingroup$ While $\overline{\mathrm{Na}} + \mathrm{H} \to \overline{\mathrm{Ne}} + N\gamma$ is hypothetically possible the phase space for it is very small compared to cases in which the hadronic result is in multiple smaller pieces. Possibly many smaller pieces. The naive expectation is that the exhibited reaction would be very rare indeed. $\endgroup$
    – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten
    Commented Mar 8, 2017 at 2:31
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This is science fiction:

What will happen if we somehow create an "anti-sodium "element and react it with "hydrogen"(not anti)?

As John notes it is very hard to make antimatter: antiprotons are easily made in proton proton scattering, and positron with gammas, but as we know, the energy levels at which the electron is trapped about a proton is of electron volt order of magnitude so the positron and the antiproton have to be cooled and brought together so that the antihydrogen can form. This has been done.

Let us suppose we want to go to anti- deuterium. One needs an antiproton and an antineutron, but neutrons and antineutrons are a not manageable because it is only with magnetic fields that one can control them, at low energies, and the antineutrons generated in parallel mechanisms during the production of antiprotons have high energies and become part of the radiation environment.Trapped cold neutrons come from reactor technologies, but it is hard to see how one could trap the energetic antineutrons to cool them so as to bind into a deuterium nucleus, to start with. Only if neutron oscillations are there, but if this is observed, then a lot of the standard model physics will have to be reexamined.

As just a simple antiproton antineutron nucleus as the antideuron has impossible experimental logistics, the build up of antinuclei with a number of antiprotons and antineutrons becomes science fiction.

It is true though, that quantum mechanics is such, that if enough energy exists in a proton scattering beam, a whole nucleus-antinucleus pair will have a quantum mechanical probability to be generated, as proton-antiproton pairs are generated. This mechanism is not even considered in the standard model of cosmology, I suppose because the probabilities are infinitesimally small.

John has answered for the result of this science fiction experiment.

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    $\begingroup$ I think you're being a bit unfair. The antiproton-sodium experiment could be done pretty easily, and barring a negligable bit of CP violation the results would be the same as for the proton-antisodium reaction just CP inverted. $\endgroup$
    – John Rennie
    Commented Apr 17, 2016 at 14:32
  • $\begingroup$ @JohnRennie yes, there are Lear antiproton experiments with complicated nuclei, but the OP has been insisting on" hydrogen on antisodium" . $\endgroup$
    – anna v
    Commented Apr 17, 2016 at 14:38
  • $\begingroup$ Good point... I was wondering about what it would take... but it didn't click just what an incredible amount of technology and energy to make just a few of these would be required until I read your answer. @JohnRennie: Similar experiments with antiprotons have been made, which is why I was asking if there were some results about fragmenting of the original nuclei. $\endgroup$
    – CuriousOne
    Commented Apr 17, 2016 at 19:04