Celestial Coexistence

Neither the "steady-state" nor "expanding" universe theory fully satisfies Swedish Physicist Hannes Alfven. What bothers him is that both ignore the existence of antimatter. "It seems logically unsatisfactory," writes Alfven in the current Reviews of Modern Physics, "that cosmological theories should be based on the assumption that the universe contains only matter." Recent subatomic-physics research has disclosed the existence of an antiparticle for every particle of ordinary matter, he says, thus there is every reason to assume that half the celestial objects in our universe are made of antimatter.

Proving Alfven's assumption would be just as difficult as disproving it. Spectral lines emitted from antimatter stars or galaxies would be of the same wave length as radiation from their material counterparts, making them useless for identifying distant antimatter. On the other hand, one unmistakable characteristic of matter and antimatter is that whenever the two meet they annihilate each other. This leads Alfven to concede that two bodies in the solar system--the moon and the sun--are indisputedly composed of matter. There was no annihilatory reaction when Soviet and U.S. rockets hit the moon; there is no such reaction when particles streaming from the sun encounter the earth's atmosphere.

Primeval Reversal. On the other hand, such celestial bodies as quasars appear to emit enormous quantities of energy that probably could not be produced by nuclear reactions alone. In some cases, Alfven says, "total annihilation of matter and antimatter may be the only possible energy source." The sudden release of great amounts of energy from a supernova, for example, has never been satisfactorily explained. It might well be caused by the collision of antimatter and matter stars.

Alfven's theory evolved from an earlier proposal by another Swedish physicist, Dr. Oskar Klein, who believes that the known universe originated billions of years ago from a cloud of matter and antimatter particles that was contracting because of gravitation. As the particles drew closer together, the increasing annihilative reactions between matter and antimatter produced enough radiation pressure to reverse the contraction of the cloud and hurl its primeval matter outward in an expansion that has continued ever since.

Hot Insulation. To explain why the original cloud did not completely annihilate itself, Alfven suggests that regions of matter and antimatter can coexist. A layer of hot ambiplasma (matter and antimatter particles in the process of annihilation) may sometimes be created, he says, when matter and antimatter meet. Like the insulating layer of steam that forms between a drop of water and the surface of a very hot stove, the ambiplasma would separate and repulse the hostile regions. In that way, Alfven believes, the two forms of matter could be prevented from committing mutual destruction.

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