antipartiikel

Antipartiikel is a term used in Dutch to denote what in English is called an antiparticle. An antipartiikel is a particle with the same mass as a corresponding particle but opposite electric charge and other quantum numbers. In modern physics, every elementary particle has a unique antiparticle, and many composite particles also have antiparticle counterparts.

Common examples illustrate the concept. The antiparticle of the electron is the positron, which carries a positive electric charge. The proton’s antiparticle is the antiproton, with negative charge. The neutron has the antineutron as its antiparticle, which has the same zero electric charge but opposite baryon number. Antiparticles of quarks form antiquarks, and antiparticles of mesons and baryons exist as well. When a particle meets its antiparticle, they can annihilate each other, typically producing energy in the form of photons or other particle–antiparticle pairs.

Antipartiikel are described within quantum field theory (QFT). The existence of antiparticles was first predicted by the Dirac equation, and later embedded in the QFT framework, where particles and antiparticles arise as excitations of fields. Antiparticles can be created in high-energy processes, such as particle colliders or pair production by photons, and they can be detected in detectors by their distinctive charges and decay patterns.

Applications and significance include medical imaging, for example positron emission tomography using positrons, and fundamental research into matter–antimatter asymmetry in the universe, CP violation, and the behavior of antimatter in gravity and high-energy environments.