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It's "common knowledge" that antimatter only differs from matter in its charge, and if left alone, it would behave exactly as matter does. This would infer that atoms of antimatter would form similar chemical bonds as matter does. Two anti-hydrogen and an anti-oxigen would form anti-water, which would behave just as regular water does.

However, was this ever experimentally verified? Were chemical bonds between atoms of antimatter ever observed? If so, were their properties the same as the chemical bonds between regular atoms?

I'm not talking about antiprotons and positrons forming atoms. I'm talkin about anti-atoms forming molecules.

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So far, although a lot of positrons and antiprotons have been produced, only a very small number of anti-hydrogen atoms have been created for study.

The positrons and antiprotons are produced with much, much more kinetic energy than the atomic binding energy. It requires some neat technology to slow and cool them, trap them and finally combine them into an atom.

The current state of the experimental art is to look at the anti-atom’s spectra and compare to regular atoms.

Doing chemistry is a long way down the road.

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  • $\begingroup$ So, this means even H2 is still far down the road? $\endgroup$
    – vsz
    Commented Apr 21, 2019 at 7:20
  • $\begingroup$ AntiH2 is probably still a ways in the future, as it’s only of secondary interest: once you’ve measured the energy levels of the antihydrogen atom, it’s hard to imagine a mechanism for molecular bonding to be different. Worth checking, yes, but since electroweak and even gravity seem more likely to show differences, they’ll get attention first. (And antiH2 will be very hard to trap) $\endgroup$
    – Bob Jacobsen
    Commented Apr 21, 2019 at 14:49
  • $\begingroup$ I mentioned AntiH2 because I guess that would be the easiest to create. Not that it's easy, but I think other molecules would be even harder to make. $\endgroup$
    – vsz
    Commented Apr 21, 2019 at 15:25

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