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Alternate Form of Propulsion Using Antimatter and Plasma ALTERNATE FORM OF PROPULSION USING ANTIMATTER AND PLASMA 1T. UDAYCHANDH, 2VISHNU CHANDAR, 3SIVA SANKAR, 4MANOJ PRABHAKAR, 5ARAVINDAKSHAN. R, 6SANDEEP NARAYANAN, 7YESHWANTH NAPOLEAN 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 Undergraduate students (B.Tech), Department of Aerospace Engineering, Srm University, Chennai Abstract- Matter antimatter annihilation propulsion system is one of the few ways to do fast interstellar rendezvous mission. This paper discusses the general mission requirements and system technologies that would be required to implement an antimatter propulsion system where a magnetic nozzle (superconducting magnet) is used to direct charged particles (from the annihilation of protons and antiprotons) to produce thrust. A gas core engine is used for propulsion. The disadvantage of a gas core is that plasma may be created. Using a plasma core can eliminate this. Magnetic fields would serve to contain the plasma and the propellant (which would also be a plasma by the time it had exited the rocket). Antiprotons would be injected into the plasma core, annihilating and heating the plasma. Heat would be rapidly transferred to the propellant, which would be expelled from the drive at high velocity. Excess plasma is redirected to the ion thruster for additional thrust. I. INTRODUCTION and Projectile (1865) and the Apollo Saturn V and Command Module (1969). One of mankind’s oldest dreams has been to visit the tiny pinpoints of light visible in the night sky. Over the last 40 years we have visited most of the major bodies in our solar system, reaching out far beyond the orbit of Pluto with our robotic spacecraft. And yet this distance, which strains the limits of our technology, represents an almost negligible step towards the light-years that must be traversed to travel to the nearest stars. For example, even though the Voyager spacecraft is one of the fastest vehicles ever built, traveling at 17 km/s or 3.6 AU/year, it would still require almost 74,000 years for it to traverse the distance to our nearest stellar neighbour. Verne was impossibly wrong in his prediction of the Thus, travel to demanding stretch goal of a fast launch vehicle, yet he was remarkably right in interstellar rendezvous mission, only beamed energy predicting the crew capsule. In part, this is because of Laser Sail, matter-antimatter, and fusion ramjet the quantum leaps in technological capability made concepts were viable candidates. by the launch vehicle (e.g., cannons versus rockets)? By contrast, the need to support three crew members II. TECHNOLOGY PREDICTIONS in a trip to the Moon is somewhat technology- independent (i.e., they need a certain amount of living Predicting the types of systems and technologies to be volume, food, oxygen, etc.), so it is perhaps not used for an interstellar mission some 50-100 years surprising that the crew capsules are so similar. from now is, somewhat by definition, virtually impossible. This is made obvious by considering the The specific objectives of our work here is to create a state of knowledge in 1903 versus 2003. For example, conceptual design of an alternate form of propulsion in 1903, Newton and Maxwell represented the that incorporates an antimatter rocket and an ion reigning models of nature; advanced transportation thruster. technology was represented by Steam Locomotives (which at that time held the world speed record). By There are three types of antimatter rockets contrast, 100 years later, Quantum Mechanics and Solid core – Energy is transferred to a propellant in Relativity rule physics; we have rockets, lasers, tungsten metal matrix heated by annihilation gamma transistors, high-temperature (100K) super- rays. conductors, and so on. What technology might do? Perhaps the most famous example is the difference Advantages – Well understood technology. between the dream of Jules Verne’s From the Earth to Disadvantages – Performance limited by melting the Moon (1865) and Apollo 11 (1969) as illustrated temperature of tungsten. in Table 1. Gas core – Energy is transferred to liquid/gas Table 1. Comparison between Jules Verne’s Cannon propellant directly heated by annihilation gamma rays. Proceedings of International Conference on Advances in Engineering & Technology, 20th April-2014, Goa, India, ISBN: 978-93-84209-06-3 21 Alternate Form of Propulsion Using Antimatter and Plasma Advantages – Improvement over solid core, not density of the proton-antiproton reaction of “only” limited by melting temperature. 64% of the ideal limit, or 5.8~10’J/~kg. Disadvantages – Flowing multi-fluid is unstable at boundaries, may ionise and create plasma. One serious issue is the gamma radiation produced in the annihilation reaction. Because of the short Solid Ablation – Energy is transferred to a material (relativistic) lifetime of the neutral pion, it only that ablates off surface of a pusher plate. moves 0.06 micrometers before decaying into Advantages – Simplicity in design, no obvious gammas. In practical terms, this means that the technology limits. neutral pions promptly decay into very high-energy Disadvantages - Half of the gamma rays do not strike gamma rays (ca. 200 MeV each) at the annihilation the pusher plate, maximum efficiency 50%. point. By contrast, the charged pions move 21 m and their decay products, charged muons, move another One of the disadvantages of gas core rockets, creation 1.85 km before decaying. of plasma can be eliminated by routing the plasma thus created to an ion thruster for additional thrust. Thus, one major systems consideration in designing a proton-antiproton annihilation propulsion system is We choose the gas core rocket as its performance is the need to shield spacecraft systems against an not limited by factors like melting point and intense (e.g., 38% of the propellant mass), high- efficiency with which gamma rays strike a plate. energy flux of gamma radiation. (By comparison, the electron-positron annihilation gammas, at 0.511 III. MATTER-ANTIMATTER ANNIHILATION MeV each, are negligible.) Finally, we have treated the annihilation mass-energy distribution as if it were Matter-antimatter annihilation offers the highest possible to separate out rest mass from kinetic possible physical energy density of any known energy; in fact, of course, we must deal with the reaction substance. The ideal energy density relativistic mass-energy content (e.g., rest mass plus (E/M=c2) of 9 ~ 1 0 J’/~kg is orders of magnitude relativistic mass “increase” due to traveling of the greater than chemical (lx107 J/kg), fission (8 ~ 1 0 pions, etc. Thus, for example, the total mass-energy ’J/~kg), or even fusion (3 ~ 1 0J’nC~g) reactions. content of the neutral pion is converted into gammas, Additionally, the matter- antimatter annihilation not just its rest mass. reaction proceeds spontaneously, therefore not requiring massive or complicated reactor systems. These properties (high energy density and spontaneous annihilation) make antimatter very attractive for propulsive ambitious space missions (e.g., interstellar travel). Antimatter for Propulsion Applications Note that for a propulsion application, proton- antiproton annihilation is preferred over electron- positron (anti-electron) annihilation because the products of proton-antiproton annihilation are charged particles that can be confined and directed magnetically. (The antiproton is identical in mass to the proton but opposite in electric charge and other quantum numbers.) By contrast, electron-positron Source: annihilation produces only high-energy gamma rays, “To build an antimatter rocket for interstellar which cannot be directed to produce thrust and do not missions, systems level consideration in designing “couple” their energy efficiently to a working fluid advanced propulsion technology vehicles”, (and also require significant shielding to protect the vehicle and its payload). This is the primary reason Robert H. Frisbee, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, for selecting the annihilation of a proton (p’) and California Institute of Technology antiproton (p-); the products include neutral and charged pions (no, n+C), and the charged pions can For these reasons, antimatter for propulsion be trapped and directed by magnetic fields to produce applications is typically assumed to be in the form of thrust. However, the pions produced in the antiprotons, neutral anti-hydrogen atoms (an annihilation reaction do possess (rest) mass (about antiproton with a positron), or anti-molecular 22% of the initial proton- antiproton annihilation pair hydrogen (anti-H,). Antiprotons do not exist in nature rest mass for charged pions, 14% for the neutral and currently are produced only by energetic particle pions), so not all of the proton- antiproton mass is collisions conducted at large accelerator facilities converted into energy. This results in an energy (e.g., Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Proceedings of International Conference on Advances in Engineering & Technology, 20th April-2014, Goa, India, ISBN: 978-93-84209-06-3 22 Alternate Form of Propulsion Using Antimatter and Plasma FermiLab, in the U.S., CERN in Geneva Switzerland, or IHEP in Russia). This process typically involves accelerating protons to relativistic velocities (very near the speed of light) and slamming them into a metal (e.g., tungsten) target. The high-energy protons are slowed or stopped by collisions with nuclei of the target; the relativistic kinetic energy of the rapidly moving antiprotons (more correctly the relativistic mass increase due to traveling near the speed of light) is converted into matter
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