Two Simon Fraser University scientists are part of an international team that has for the first time successfully used microwaves to manipulate antihydrogen atoms. Their work could help answer fundamental questions about the universe.

Researchers will now start to measure the natural resonance frequencies of anti-hydrogen atoms and compare their findings against similar measurements on normal hydrogen atoms.

"This comparison is motivated in part by a question that has baffled scientists for a long time," says SFU physics professor Mike Hayden, lead author of the research paper published in Nature March 7. "The known laws of physics tell us that matter and antimatter should naturally exist in equal amounts. The problem is that we seem to live in a universe that is almost entirely devoid of antimatter.

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