New centre opens to study a small matter

Australia will be positioned to take a world-leading role in the area, with the establishment of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for AntiMatter-Matter Studies (CAMS), which was launched today by ARC chief executive professor Peter Høj.

Professor Høj said the ARC Centre of Excellence for Antimatter-Matter Studies would ensure that Australia was at the leading edge of the field, and that it would work alongside collaborative partners from eight overseas institutions around the world including Europe, Japan and the US.

The particular form of anti-matter that the Centre will focus on is the positron, the positively charged "antiparticle' of the negatively charged electron. When the electron and positron come together, they eventually annihilate one another and produce two gamma rays.

Positronium has properties that enable it to be used as a probe of the "empty' space in materials or of tumour sites in the body.

The Centre for AntiMatter-Matter Studies is a joint venture between The Australian National University, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, Flinders University, Griffith University, Murdoch University and the University of Western Australia.

"The ARC Centre of Excellence for Antimatter-Matter Studies provides researchers in this field with an unparalleled opportunity to forge a strong, interdisciplinary scientific team for state-of-the-art studies into the way positrons interact with matter," said Høj.

Positron interactions have broad application in fields such as materials science and medical technology. They can be used to characterise the size and nature of free volume in materials at the nano-scale and are also widely used as a diagnostic tool in Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scans to detect cancers.

However, the fundamental interactions between these positrons and the molecules and cells that make up our bodies that underpin PET are not well understood. The Centre for AntiMatter-Matter Studies is set to discover more about these interactions.

The technology used for the study of positrons includes the custom-made Australian Positron Beamline Facility at ANU which produces a beam of anti-matter by collecting, manipulating and trapping positrons that are emitted from a radioactive isotope.

The Centre for AntiMatter-Matter Studies will be opened by Professor Høj today (7 June) at 4.30pm at the Research School of Physical Sciences and Engineering, Mills Road, ANU.