Antiworld

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Antiworld

a hypothetical cosmic object (a type of star or galaxy) that consists of antimatter. The hypothesis of the existence of antimatter and antiworlds was stated in 1933 by P. Dirac but has not been confirmed or disproved by observations. The electromagnetic radiation from stars and antistars is identical, so that it is impossible to distinguish between them by optical or radioastronomical methods. Other methods, such as those of neutrino astronomy, theoretically make these observations possible, since stars radiate mainly the neutrino and antistars, the antineutrino, but the existing apparatus (in the 1960’s) is not sufficiently sensitive. The problem of antiworlds became complicated after the discovery of violations of the law of conservation of parity (1957, 1964); it is not completely clear whether antiworlds should be represented, as before, as objects made of antimatter existing in ordinary space-time or whether they should be considered as existing in some “reversed” space-time.

REFERENCE

Alfvén, H. Miry i antimiry. Moscow, 1968. (Translated from Swedish.)

G. I. NAAN

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