![]() Particle accelerators do this via superconducting magnets. ![]() The solution like this might be to accelerate the antimatter and matter out the end of the spaceship. Either way, the explosion won't be directed rearwards, as with a typical rocket. If it's in a large storage area, the explosion probably won't be near whichever end of the craft you designate the rear. If it's in a small storage area, the energy released may destroy the Penning trap (or whatever else you're using). When you bring the antimatter into contact with matter, you can't simply have it in the storage area. Unfortunately, Penning traps are used primarily to store antimatter, not to provide an annihilation chamber. ![]() This approach of course restricts us to using charged particles - protons and electrons, for example - but this isn't a significant problem, as these are the types of antimatter that are easiest to produce. Using both types of fields ends up giving us the required stability. The reason we need both is that a magnetic field or an electric field could not keep a particle in a stable position on its own thanks to a mathematical result know as Earnshaw's theorem. It uses a magnetic field and an electric field to store charged particles. Fortunately, storing antimatter is much easier to do.Ĭurrently, the best way to store antimatter is a Penning trap. While we may someday build an antimatter-based propulsion device, it's a ways off. I'll address storage of antimatter, because that is the one thing in your question humans have done successfully so far. Thus I think even a single gram of antimatter should be more than enough probably it would need just a few milligrams. How much energy a ship would need of course depends on how fast the ship needs to go, how often it needs to accelerate/decelerate (non-accelerated flight is free), how efficient its engines are, and how often it can be refueled, but I think it is safe to assume that it will be significantly less than the current yearly world energy production. Using your quoted number (A petawatt-hour is 3600 petajoules), to produce that energy, one would need about 4 to 8 metric tons of antimatter to fulfil the current world energy needs for a whole year. The yearly world energy consumption is somewhere between 100 and 200 Petawatt-hours. Probably the antimatter would be held magnetically as a plasma, quite similarly to the hydrogen in a fusion reactor (the hot hydrogen gas in the fusion reactor also has to be kept away from the walls, although there it's because of its high temperature). Assuming you don't have a special force field a la star trek, that would mean electromagnetic fields. The only way to contain and manipulate antimatter would be using fields. At the same time, you also need to allow it to safely be transported to the reaction place where a controlled annihilation with matter would happen. So you need to find a way to keep the antimatter safely away from any matter in your ship. ![]() You cannot simply put it into a normal container, because the normal container would be made of matter, and the antimatter would annihilate with it. The main problem with antimatter would be containment. ![]()
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