ANTIMATTER GENERATION

           Before the advent of the Infinite Matter Devices (IMDs), antimatter had to be created from existing normal matter, and it was this process that provided a bottleneck in the expansion of the early federation fleet. Fortunately shortly before the Mawa-Rei wars the breakthrough was made, which led to the first IMD’s, a huge expansion of the fleet could be made, along with upgrade of many craft from fusion powerplants to antimatter.

            The process of creating antimatter is hugely energy expensive, and the only practical way was the conversion of normal matter into antimatter, rather than synthesis from energy. Pure Synthesis was simply far to energy consumptive, and required huge equipment, though in essence it was a simpler process, the main method that was used through early federation history up until 2164 (The first IMDs), was a process of conversion which changed the quark properties of normal matter into antimatter, this was also extremely energy expensive, but not as much as synthesis, and could provide production rate capable of sustaining the growing fleet.

            The process relies on changing the way that subatomic molecules behave, and energy has to be put in to surmount the energy required to convert stable matter into a similarly stable antimatter state. Improvements in this process have been to reduce the transition threshold, which allows more matter to be converted with same input of energy, and also rapid processing that prevents the newly formed antimatter atoms being converted back by the same process and reacting with other antimatter atoms.

            The method of conversion requires several separate different processes, the first process ionizes the hydrogen input stream, the ions are separated, then chilled by passing over chilled Driver Coil Material (DCM), and then introduced into the converter.

The converter uses large magnets to manipulate the incoming ions and accelerate them in a spiral course, as they work outwards and approach the edge of the spiral they are traveling at high fractions of the speed of light. At these speeds the particle's rate of passing time is decreased (relativity effects, and time dilation), this makes them more susceptible to certain electromagnetic wavelengths (similar to the magnetic separation effects used in NMR), also the frequencies that would be required if particles were traveling slowly are very hard to generate, so a compromise is made by accelerating the particles rather than producing ultra high frequency radiation.

The accelerated particles have a unique resonance caused by the subatomic particles they contain, but if these normal particles are exposed to their own resonant frequencies they become excited, and this gives them further energy, it is in this excited state that a second radiation generating unit then hits them with the resonant frequencies of antimatter atoms, this encourages the excited accelerated ions to convert into antimatter. The converted particles are the decelerated in a similar device to the accelerator, and in their slowing spiral path they emit radiation, the first amount of radiation usually matches the resonant frequency of antimatter and for this reason the spiral double backs into the converter so that this radiation can be used to convert more particles into their antiparticles. As the particles decelerate further they emit more and more feeble radiation, the cooled particles are the separated and chilled further by stasis as DCM would react with the antimatter. Prior to storage the ions and recombined that were originally separated in the original process, combining positrons with anti-protons to form anti-protium (anti-hydrogen).

This process is long and complicated and requires a vast amount of machinery, there are also complications at every step. The accelerator and decelerator units are effectively converted cyclotrons, but getting these devices to handle large amounts of matter is near impossible.

The radiation generating units require the production of extremely high frequency gamma radiation, and also at very specific frequencies, this process is fulfilled by separately accelerating neutrons to specific speeds and converting them to radiative energy with collisions with a neutronium target, though this method cannot produce an exact frequency, and also generates exotic particle fallout, these can be cleared up by force field windows that open into the radiation chamber. The neutronium targets however need regular reconditioning.

The major processing problem is the fact that electrons and protons have to be processed in different machines, though it would theoretically be possible to run both ions in the same equipment, the reactions that generate between each other produces a less efficient conversion process, and a dirtier output stream which destroys some of the produced antimatter.

This process is run by standard fusion reactors which provide all the power for the process. The figures for the conversion of 1 litre of liquid hydrogen to ~1 litre (there is some negligible loss in the process) of liquid antihydrogen requires the fusion of ~3 litres of liquid hydrogen to helium for the required energy, and also the generated neutrons from the fusion reactions for high energy radiation production. The processing rate is in the order ~10 litres of anti-hydrogen an hour (equivalent to ~11.15 kilograms), but the larger machines can process of up to half a tonne a day.

The process is generally run in spaceborne facilities due to the risk of loss of antimatter confinement. Some of the larger ships also have the conversion equipment aboard, and some small units are being designed for small craft where combined with existing hydrogen capture units could enable them to  generate enough antimatter for their needs.