Researchers from the Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg (Sweden), the Institute of Applied Physics at Lobachevsky University (Russia) and the University of Plymouth (United Kingdom), have achieved a scientific-technological feat. They have discovered how to generate gamma rays a billion times more intense than photons in visible light.
In the words of Arkady Gonoskov, a researcher at the Physics department of the aforementioned Swedish university, such an advance will allow us “to delve into the basic elements of nature, and dive into the deepest part of the atomic nucleus.
At this point you may wonder what gamma rays are. The NASA website tells you better than anyone: “They are the most energetic form of light and are produced by the hottest regions of the universe. They are also generated by supernova explosions, the destruction of atoms, and the decay of radioactive material in space. Neutron stars, pulsars and black holes are sources of gamma rays ”.
This type of electromagnetic radiation has practical applications: it is used in medicine to kill cancer cells and in imaging techniques such as tomography, in telescopes, and also to kill bacteria and parasites in food without damaging them.
How did they create super gamma rays?
Scientists have fired a laser pulse at an object. When that is done, all the affected particles disperse. But if the laser is intense enough, as it has been in this case, the particles are trapped. A cloud is created where the matter and antimatter particles behave in unusual ways.
According to Mattias Marklund, Professor of Physics at Chalmers, “the cloud of trapped particles converts the laser energy into cascades of high-energy photons.” That is, in gamma rays of enormous strength.
What can this be for? To obtain the most powerful light sources on Earth, something that, in the words of Arkady Gonoskov, will lead us to “discoveries in the field of nuclear physics that, among other things, could allow the discovery of new energy sources”.
Image (Marck Garlick / University of Warwick): Illustration of the emission of gamma rays from a black hole after “swallowing” a star the size of our sun.
