- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review E

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Editors' Suggestion
  • Open Access

Fast matter-antimatter separation via Weibel-induced plasma filamentation

Oliver Mathiak1,*, Lars Reichwein2,1, and Alexander Pukhov1

  • *Contact author: oliver.mathiak@hhu.de
PDF

Phys. Rev. E 112, 025208 – Published 20 August, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/wsly-16yn

Abstract

We study the separation of matter and antimatter driven by the growth of the Weibel instability in a matter-antimatter plasma. The plasma under consideration comprises protons and antiprotons initially at rest, along with a relativistic stream of leptons (electrons and positrons). This stream is maintained by an external force, potentially originating from phenomena such as a photon wind. Our findings reveal the rapid onset of a Weibel-type instability, leading to a distinct separation of matter and antimatter. Results from our particle-in-cell simulations are compared with an analytical model based on the linearized magnetohydrodynamics equations.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (33)

  1. G. Steigman, Observational tests of antimatter cosmologies, Annu. Rev. Astron. Astrophys. 14, 339 (1976).
  2. G. Steigman, When clusters collide: constraints on antimatter on the largest scales, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 2008, 001 (2008).
  3. J. Alcaraz, D. Alvisi, B. Alpat, G. Ambrosi, H. Anderhub, L. Ao, A. Arefiev, P. Azzarello, E. Babucci, L. Baldini, M. Basile, D. Barancourt, F. Barao, G. Barbier, G. Barreira, R. Battiston, R. Becker, U. Becker, L. Bellagamba, P. Béné, J. Berdugo, P. Berges et al., Search for antihelium in cosmic rays, Phys. Lett. B 461, 387 (1999).
  4. L. Canetti, M. Drewes, and M. Shaposhnikov, Matter and antimatter in the universe, New J. Phys. 14, 095012 (2012).
  5. M. Giovannini, Probing large-scale magnetism with the cosmic microwave background, Class. Quantum Grav. 35, 084003 (2018).
  6. M. Giovannini, The magnetized universe, Int. J. Mod. Phys. D 13, 391 (2004).
  7. P. P. Kronberg, Extragalactic magnetic fields, Rep. Prog. Phys. 57, 325 (1994).
  8. J. Rafelski, J. Birrell, A. Steinmetz, and C. T. Yang, A short survey of matter-antimatter evolution in the primordial universe, Universe 9, 309 (2023).
  9. C. Grayson, C. T. Yang, M. Formanek, and J. Rafelski, Electron-positron plasma in BBN: Damped-dynamic screening, Ann. Phys. 458, 169453 (2023).
  10. R. Blandford and R. Znajek, Electromagnetic extraction of energy from kerr black holes, Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 179, 433 (1977).
  11. M. C. Begelman, R. D. Blandford, and M. J. Rees, Theory of extragalactic radio sources, Rev. Mod. Phys. 56, 255 (1984).
  12. T. Piran, Towards understanding gamma-ray bursts, arXiv:astro-ph/9507114.
  13. M. Lobet, X. Davoine, E. d'Humières, and L. Gremillet, Generation of high-energy electron-positron pairs in the collision of a laser-accelerated electron beam with a multipetawatt laser, Phys. Rev. Accel. Beams 20, 043401 (2017).
  14. C. Huntington, F. Fiuza, J. Ross, A. Zylstra, R. P. Drake, D. Froula, G. Gregori, N. Kugland, C. Kuranz, M. Levy et al., Observation of magnetic field generation via the Weibel instability in interpenetrating plasma flows, Nat. Phys. 11, 173 (2015) .
  15. G. Sarri et al., Generation of neutral and high-density electron–positron pair plasmas in the laboratory, Nat. Commun. 6, 6747 (2015).
  16. G. Sarri, W. Schumaker, A. Di Piazza, M. Vargas, B. Dromey, M. E. Dieckmann, V. Chvykov, A. Maksimchuk, V. Yanovsky, Z. H. He, B. X. Hou, J. A. Nees, A. G. R. Thomas, C. H. Keitel, M. Zepf, and K. Krushelnick, Table-top laser-based source of femtosecond, collimated, ultrarelativistic positron beams, Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 255002 (2013).
  17. G. Fiksel, W. Fox, A. Bhattacharjee, D. H. Barnak, P.-Y. Chang, K. Germaschewski, S. X. Hu, and P. M. Nilson, Magnetic reconnection between colliding magnetized laser-produced plasma plumes, Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 105003 (2014).
  18. A. Samsonov and A. Pukhov, Production and magnetic self-confinement of e−e+ plasma by an extremely intense laser pulse incident on a structured solid target, arXiv:2409.09131 [physics.plasm-ph].
  19. E. F. van Dishoeck, Laboratory astrophysics: Key to understanding the universe, Proc. Int. Astron. Union 15, 3 (2019).
  20. G. K. Ngirmang, J. T. Morrison, K. M. George, J. R. Smith, K. D. Frische, C. Orban, E. A. Chowdhury, and W. M. Roquemore, Evidence of radial weibel instability in relativistic intensity laser-plasma interactions inside a sub-micron thick liquid target, Sci. Rep. 10, 9872 (2020).
  21. C. D. Arrowsmith, P. Simon, P. J. Bilbao, A. F. A. Bott, S. Burger, H. Chen, F. D. Cruz, T. Davenne, I. Efthymiopoulos, D. H. Froula, A. Goillot, J. T. Gudmundsson, D. Haberberger, J. W. D. Halliday, T. Hodge, B. T. Huffman, S. Iaquinta, F. Miniati, B. Reville, S. Sarkar, A. A. Schekochihin, L. O. Silva, R. Simpson, V. Stergiou, R. M. G. M. Trines, T. Vieu, N. Charitonidis, R. Bingham, and G. Gregori, Laboratory realization of relativistic pair-plasma beams, Nat. Commun. 15, 5029 (2024).
  22. A. Kendl, G. Danler, M. Wiesenberger, and M. Held, Interchange instability and transport in matter-antimatter plasmas, Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 235001 (2017).
  23. W. Greiner and J. Reinhardt, Quantum Electrodynamics (Springer, Berlin, 2003).
  24. J. Carbonell, K. Protasov, and A. Zenoni, pp low energy parameters from annihilation cross section data, Phys. Lett. B 397, 345 (1997).
  25. A. Zenoni, A. Bianconi, F. Bocci, G. Bonomi, M. Corradini, A. Donzella, E. Lodi Rizzini, L. Venturelli, A. Bertin, M. Bruschi, M. Capponi, S. De Castro, R. Donà, D. Galli, B. Giacobbe, U. Marconi, I. Massa, M. Piccinini, N. Semprini Cesari, R. Spighi et al., New measurements of the p¯p annihilation cross section at very low energy, Phys. Lett. B 461, 405 (1999).
  26. A. Bianconi, M. Corradini, M. Hori, M. Leali, E. Lodi Rizzini, V. Mascagna, A. Mozzanica, M. Prest, E. Vallazza, L. Venturelli, and N. Zurlo, Measurement of the antiproton–nucleus annihilation cross section at 5.3 MeV, Phys. Lett. B 704, 461 (2011).
  27. T.-G. Lee and C.-Y. Wong, Nuclear annihilation by antinucleons, Phys. Rev. C 93, 014616 (2016).
  28. J. Carbonell and K. Protasov, Annihilation of ultra low energy antiprotons, Hyperfine Interact. 76, 325 (1993).
  29. A. Pukhov, Three-dimensional electromagnetic relativistic particle-in-cell code VLPL (virtual laser plasma lab), J. Plasma Phys. 61, 425 (1999).
  30. A. Pukhov, Particle-in-cell codes for plasma-based particle acceleration, in Proceedings of the 2014 CAS-CERN Accelerator School: Plasma Wake Acceleration (2016), Vol. 1.
  31. K. Yee, Numerical solution of initial boundary value problems involving maxwell's equations in isotropic media, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag. 14, 302 (1966).
  32. E. S. Weibel, Spontaneously growing transverse waves in a plasma due to an anisotropic velocity distribution, Phys. Rev. Lett. 2, 83 (1959).
  33. https://www.gauss-centre.eu/.

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. E 112, 025208– Published 20 August, 2025
  • Received 10 February 2025
  • Revised 5 May 2025
  • Accepted 2 July 2025
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation