Antimatter in matter composed of the analogous antiparticles to ordinary matter. Physicists believe symmetry breakdown at the most fundamental levels after the Big
Bang resulted in our
universe where matter predominates and anti-matter is all but non-existant.
Anti-hydrogen consists of an anti-electron aka Positron, orbiting an Antiproton. Truly miniscule amounts of Anti-hydrogen (a few atoms) have been made in the largest accelerator laboratories.
When reacted with ordinary matter anti-matter would
indeed release enormous amounts of energy according to E=
MC^2. However, much of this energy is carried away in neutrinos, which interact so slightly with anything at all, matter or antimatter, capturing the output of a M-AM reactor would present another huge hurdle.
However, it may not necessarily take more energy input than output. This is based on the misconception that the input to the accelerators is the same energy as released by the reaction. The energy released by a future M-AM reactor comes from annihilation, rather than being stored energy from the accelerator drive & containment. Most of the huge
power requirements of accelerators goes into their magnetic confinement system. Suppose it becomes possible to
re-arrange the quarks constituting normal matter into the configuration of antimatter much more efficiently. This is a big science fiction IF, by the way. Thus if a “matter inverter” were to function reasonably efficiently, the downstream M-AM reactor would see a net gain.
One possibility would be to
base the “matter inverter” on a hypothetical Bussard Ramjet. This would be a magnetic or electrostatic “
scoop” that collects interstellar hydrogen to
power a hypothetical interstellar spacecraft at relativistic speeds. An accelerator might not be needed, as the hydrogen &
whatever other atoms are out there would be running into the craft at near-light
speed already. Although the Bussard
scoop field(s) would probably use a lot of
power in its own right.
Remember and be warned, when
one extrapolates science far enough beyond the frontiers of present knowledge, it becomes largely indistinguishable from science fiction!
