| HN Mirror

Not only there is no evidence for the existence of antimatter in quantities comparable with matter, but there also is no logical necessity for this.

People who entertain the idea of an initial state with equal amounts of matter and antimatter do this because thus the properties of the matter that are conserved, except the energy, would sum to zero in the initial state.

However, such people forget that not only the particle-antiparticle pairs that can be generated or annihilated through electromagnetic interactions have this property that the conserved quantities except the energy sum to zero.

The particle-antiparticle symmetry is important only for the electromagnetic interactions, while other interactions have more complex symmetries.

All the so-called weak interactions are equivalent with the generation or annihilation of groups of 4 particles, for which all the conserved properties except energy sum to zero. Such a group of 4 particles typically consists of a quark, an antiquark, a charged lepton or anti-lepton and a neutrino or antineutrino.

For instance the beta decay of a neutron into a proton is equivalent with the generation of 4 particles, an u quark, an anti-d quark, an electron and an antineutrino. The electron and the antineutrino fly away, while the anti-d quark annihilates a d quark, so the net effect for the nucleus is a change of a d quark into an u quark, which transforms a neutron into a proton.

The generation and annihilation of groups of 4 particles in the weak interactions are mediated by the W bosons, but this is a detail of the mechanism of the interactions, which is necessary for computations of numeric values, but not for the explanation of the global effect of the weak interactions, for which the transient existence of the W intermediate bosons can be ignored.

So besides the symmetry between a particle and an anti-particle, we have a symmetry that binds certain groups of 4 quarks and leptons.

There is a third symmetry, which binds groups of 8 particles. For instance, there are 3 kinds of u quarks, 3 kinds of d quarks, electrons and neutrinos, a total of 8 particles that belong to the so-called first generation of matter particles (i.e. the lightest such particles).

All the conserved quantities except energy sum to zero for this group of 8 particles. The neutrino is necessary in this group so that the spin will also sum to zero, not only the electric charge and the hadronic charge.

These 8 kinds of particles are exactly those that are supposed to compose in equal quantities the matter of the Universe at the Big Bang.

So all the conserved quantities except energy sum to zero for the Universe at the Big Bang, when it is composed entirely of ordinary matter, without any antimatter.

Therefore there is no need for antimatter in the initial state.

There is no known reason for this symmetry between the 8 particles of a generation of quarks and leptons, except that this allows for the initial state at the Big Bang to have a zero sum for the conserved properties.

It can be speculated that this symmetry might be associated with a supplementary hyper-weak interaction, in the same way as the symmetry between certain groups of 4 quarks and leptons is associated with the weak interaction. Such an interaction would allow the generation and annihilation of ordinary matter, without antimatter, but with an extraordinarily low probability.