Hi All

Hey RL, I wrote a comment about the positron rocket and storage on Paul Gilster's "Centauri Dreams" blog and he gave me this answer from the researchers themselves...

Hi Adam,

I just added a comment to the antimatter story from yesterday -- wanted to make sure you saw Gerald Smith's comment: "We don't store bare positrons for just the reason you state. We make neutral positronium atoms (bound positron and electron), and in the presence of electric and magnetic fields they are stabilized and stored in porous media." I had sent him your original question. He also added this: "That's about all I can tell you now." And the feeling at this end is that there are some interesting storage developments that are going to be announced soon, but this is just my hunch from dealing with these guys in the past.

All best,

Paul

...which sounds pretty damned interesting. Elsewhere I have read about using - would you believe - clay crystals as a storage system for antimatter. Apparently the charge distribution within the crystal structure creates a nanoscale magnetic mirror you can put (sufficiently 'cold') antimatter in. I wonder if the 'porous medium' iutilises that rather odd property of clay?

Adam