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Why do matter and antimatter annihilate? (bigthink.com)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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From forming bound states to normal scattering, many possibilities abound for matter-antimatter interactions. So why do they annihilate? There’s a quantum reason we simply can’t avoid.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago

I work on a 0nuBB search doing detector R&D, this is spot on, but has 2 extra components. The three elements needed for explaining the asymmetry are:

CP Violation
Lepton or Baryon Number violation
Interactions out of thermal equilibrium

These are the Sakharov conditions for Baryogenesis/Leptogenesis. #1 has been observed via the weak interaction but not in large enough quantities and is not observed via strong interactions, #2 is what proton decay and 0nuBB searches look for, and #3 can be, at least partially, explained by the expansion of the universe as a non-equilibrium interaction.

To get from leptogenesis to baryogenesis requires theretical physics I only barely understand using particles call sphaelerons that convert leptons to baryons.