Moscow - Cassiopeia?
Did you watch the film “Moscow - Cassiopeia” in childhood? I looked at it, being still a preschool child, and took it on faith - that everything will definitely be like that, they will build an annihilation engine on antimatter held in magnetic traps, a ship with greenhouses and a closed autonomous ecosphere and go ahead! This idea was strengthened by the books that came to hand. I don’t know by what principle the parents at that time picked up books that were in the home library - for me, it was just huge cabinets without any system where books were accumulated in layers from prehistoric times. Now I am surprised at the thoughtfulness and wisdom of my parents - the books were distributed in cabinets in such a system that, depending on my age and growth, I could reach the book that is more likely to be understandable, relevant, interesting for me. So it was! In the third grade, I reached out to “Physics for the Young” and “Entertaining Physics” by Jan Perelman, ( in the fifth grade I started to read - I set up a stool, I found such books on the upper shelves that oh - her ... but that's another story )
In one of the Soviet books about scientific projects of space exploration I found the following model of a photon rocket:
Figure 1 - a huge parabolic deflector of a superconducting mirror, designed to direct the flow of energy annihilating substances and antimatter in the focus of the reflector. Superconductivity is necessary so that the currents induced by the powerful flux of photons produced as a result of annihilation do not lead to the heating of the reflector.
According to design calculations, such an engine could accelerate a rocket to speeds sufficient to reach the nearest stars and planetary systems during the life of a person.
As it was reported in the description of that wonderful project - for its implementation it remains to solve only two global engineering tasks:
1. Storage of antimatter
2. Receiving antimatter in sufficient quantities
')
The search for solutions to these problems required very extensive basic research and stirred the minds. Then, the stars suddenly became useless. At least in our country.
However, one way or another, but these tasks were gradually solved.
Many people, including members of this respected community, have repeatedly asked themselves the question: what are these expensive experiments that CERN is doing to search for the Higgs boson, etc.?
In particular, for the fact that such studies allow the search and verification of related applied technologies - spurs applied science.
For example, during one of the CERN experiments on antihydrogen production, combinations of Penning magnetic traps and Ioffe-Pitchard traps were used. With their help, the obtained anti-hydrogen molecules existed for about 15 minutes, which, by the standards of quantum physics, is a very long lifetime of unstable particles.
Thus, the solution of the first engineering problem of the construction of a quantum rocket was evident.
But what about the second? How to get antimatter in sufficient quantities, so even in the conditions of the cosmic vacuum? It seemed that in the next century we would not get even hints at the solution of this problem.
However, the other day I read about the results of the work of the research team of the VARIES project, who were working on the issue of obtaining antimatter from ... voids.
Here you need to make a small digression:
In 1948, the Dutch physicist Hendrik Casimir, noticed that if two mirror surfaces were parallel to each other and brought together at a distance of about 10 nm, a rather significant force of attraction or repulsion would arise between them (depending on the configuration of the mirror planes) between the mirrors. This effect is due to the action of quantum fluctuations in a vacuum.
According to quantum field theory, the physical vacuum is not an absolute void. In it, the pairs of virtual particles and antiparticles are constantly born and disappear - constant fluctuations (fluctuations) of the fields associated with these particles occur. In particular, oscillations of the electromagnetic field associated with photons occur. In a vacuum, virtual photons are generated and disappear, corresponding to all wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Stop! That is, in a vacuum - particles? But this is just a mathematical abstraction, a model, you say - after all, the particles are virtual!
However, this is not quite true. Under certain conditions, virtual particles filling the vacuum can become real and last long enough.
For example, using the SQUID (superconducting quantum interference device) quantum device that was designed by Christopher Wilson and his colleagues at the University of Technology Chalmers in Gothenburg, Sweden.
In this device, a miniature metal loop was exposed to an alternating magnetic field, oscillating at a frequency of 11 billion times per second. The metal loop under the influence of a magnetic field oscillated with a small amplitude, but at the same time developing a speed of five percent of the speed of light. Such a speed of movement was already enough to “push” virtual vacuum particles and to manifest the so-called dynamic Casimir effect.
As expected, with the motion of the above-mentioned loop, photons of light began to be born, carrying a clear quantum “signature” of virtual particles, which, as a result of the pair breaking, became real particles.
Original source.
Eureka! But how can this be useful to our rocket?
The idea of obtaining antimatter particles from vacuum formed the basis of the VARIES project (Vacuum to Antimatter-Rocket Interstellar Explorer System) .
According to the plan of this project, the VARIES spacecraft is equipped with a huge number of solar batteries having a total area of hundreds of square kilometers. In order to fill the fuel tanks of the ship, VARIES "parks" near any star and unfolds solar panels.
The energy from solar cells, accumulated in special supercapacitor batteries, drives a monstrously powerful laser, the beam of which “breaks space-time into pieces”, which leads to the spontaneous emergence of matter and antimatter (protons and antiprotons). Collecting the antimatter produced in the trap, the ship is near the star until the amount of fuel is enough for the flight to the next star or to the destination.
According to calculations made by scientists, the laser power should be 5x10 ^ 29 watts per square centimeter.
Thus, while the VARIES spacecraft can reach the vicinity of any suitable star, it will always have at its disposal an unlimited supply of the most energy-efficient fuel.
Of course, this project does not claim an unambiguous solution to the problem of obtaining antimatter, since such a laser power is currently not available to humanity. But still, we have more and more compelling reasons for the fact that we early abandoned the starry sky. Engage!
In one of the Soviet books about scientific projects of space exploration I found the following model of a photon rocket:
Figure 1 - a huge parabolic deflector of a superconducting mirror, designed to direct the flow of energy annihilating substances and antimatter in the focus of the reflector. Superconductivity is necessary so that the currents induced by the powerful flux of photons produced as a result of annihilation do not lead to the heating of the reflector.
According to design calculations, such an engine could accelerate a rocket to speeds sufficient to reach the nearest stars and planetary systems during the life of a person.
As it was reported in the description of that wonderful project - for its implementation it remains to solve only two global engineering tasks:
1. Storage of antimatter
2. Receiving antimatter in sufficient quantities
')
The search for solutions to these problems required very extensive basic research and stirred the minds. Then, the stars suddenly became useless. At least in our country.
However, one way or another, but these tasks were gradually solved.
Many people, including members of this respected community, have repeatedly asked themselves the question: what are these expensive experiments that CERN is doing to search for the Higgs boson, etc.?
In particular, for the fact that such studies allow the search and verification of related applied technologies - spurs applied science.
For example, during one of the CERN experiments on antihydrogen production, combinations of Penning magnetic traps and Ioffe-Pitchard traps were used. With their help, the obtained anti-hydrogen molecules existed for about 15 minutes, which, by the standards of quantum physics, is a very long lifetime of unstable particles.
Thus, the solution of the first engineering problem of the construction of a quantum rocket was evident.
But what about the second? How to get antimatter in sufficient quantities, so even in the conditions of the cosmic vacuum? It seemed that in the next century we would not get even hints at the solution of this problem.
However, the other day I read about the results of the work of the research team of the VARIES project, who were working on the issue of obtaining antimatter from ... voids.
Here you need to make a small digression:
In 1948, the Dutch physicist Hendrik Casimir, noticed that if two mirror surfaces were parallel to each other and brought together at a distance of about 10 nm, a rather significant force of attraction or repulsion would arise between them (depending on the configuration of the mirror planes) between the mirrors. This effect is due to the action of quantum fluctuations in a vacuum.
According to quantum field theory, the physical vacuum is not an absolute void. In it, the pairs of virtual particles and antiparticles are constantly born and disappear - constant fluctuations (fluctuations) of the fields associated with these particles occur. In particular, oscillations of the electromagnetic field associated with photons occur. In a vacuum, virtual photons are generated and disappear, corresponding to all wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Stop! That is, in a vacuum - particles? But this is just a mathematical abstraction, a model, you say - after all, the particles are virtual!
However, this is not quite true. Under certain conditions, virtual particles filling the vacuum can become real and last long enough.
For example, using the SQUID (superconducting quantum interference device) quantum device that was designed by Christopher Wilson and his colleagues at the University of Technology Chalmers in Gothenburg, Sweden.
In this device, a miniature metal loop was exposed to an alternating magnetic field, oscillating at a frequency of 11 billion times per second. The metal loop under the influence of a magnetic field oscillated with a small amplitude, but at the same time developing a speed of five percent of the speed of light. Such a speed of movement was already enough to “push” virtual vacuum particles and to manifest the so-called dynamic Casimir effect.
As expected, with the motion of the above-mentioned loop, photons of light began to be born, carrying a clear quantum “signature” of virtual particles, which, as a result of the pair breaking, became real particles.
Original source.
Eureka! But how can this be useful to our rocket?
The idea of obtaining antimatter particles from vacuum formed the basis of the VARIES project (Vacuum to Antimatter-Rocket Interstellar Explorer System) .
According to the plan of this project, the VARIES spacecraft is equipped with a huge number of solar batteries having a total area of hundreds of square kilometers. In order to fill the fuel tanks of the ship, VARIES "parks" near any star and unfolds solar panels.
The energy from solar cells, accumulated in special supercapacitor batteries, drives a monstrously powerful laser, the beam of which “breaks space-time into pieces”, which leads to the spontaneous emergence of matter and antimatter (protons and antiprotons). Collecting the antimatter produced in the trap, the ship is near the star until the amount of fuel is enough for the flight to the next star or to the destination.
According to calculations made by scientists, the laser power should be 5x10 ^ 29 watts per square centimeter.
Thus, while the VARIES spacecraft can reach the vicinity of any suitable star, it will always have at its disposal an unlimited supply of the most energy-efficient fuel.
Of course, this project does not claim an unambiguous solution to the problem of obtaining antimatter, since such a laser power is currently not available to humanity. But still, we have more and more compelling reasons for the fact that we early abandoned the starry sky. Engage!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/148429/
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