Researchers at the CERN particle-physics lab near Geneva have been left stunned after a lorry containing a vial of antiprotons went missing. The lorry had been used by the Baryon-Antibaryon Symmetry Experiment (BASE) to successfully transport 92 antiprotons around the CERN site last month.
Following their work, BASE researchers had left the lorry in the main CERN car park but found it had vanished the following morning. The antiprotons were contained in a cryogentically-cooled Penning trap composed of gold-plated cylindrical electrode stacks made from oxygen-free copper surrounded by a superconducting magnet bore.
Initial suspicion was that the lorry might have been stolen by visiting US researchers from Fermilab, but a review of CCTV footage by CERN scientist Vittoria Vetra suggests it had been left overnight with the handbrake off.
I should have paid more attention. But I was just reaching into my bag to get my baguette lunch.
CERN lorry driver Herwig Chopper
Vetra discovered that following the test run, the driver – Herwig Chopper – had hit a pine marten dashing across the car park. “I should have paid more attention,” admitted Chopper. “But I was just reaching into my bag to get my baguette lunch”.
The driver swiftly went to get help for the stricken marten, with the suspicion being that in the rush he accidently left the truck’s handbrake off.
Angels & Demons, Tom Hanks and Peter Higgs: how CERN sold its story to the world
Footage taken later in the day revealed that the antiproton lorry began moving slowly forwards towards an identical vehicle containing protons, which had been used in 2024 to successfully transport protons across the lab’s campus.
Moments later, the two trucks collided and annihilated in a brilliant flash of light that dazzled the CCTV camera.
The light was so intense that it was even picked up at CERN’s Antiproton Proton RecoIL-1 (APRIL-1) experiment, which lies just a few hundred metres away.
Initial analysis by experiment head Silvano Bentivoglio suggests that the significant centre-of-mass energy of the collision could have produced two new particles, which the team have dubbed an “angelon” and a “demon”.
This new discovery opens up a new branch of particle physics to probe the full collision spectrum of trucks containing matter and antimatter.
TV physicist Brian Cox
“This new discovery opens up a new branch of particle physics to probe the full collision spectrum of trucks containing matter and antimatter,” says TV particle physicist Brian Cox. “Who knows what we might find and it could also be possible to collide other methods of transportation to search for new forces.”
There are now calls for CERN to build the 91 km Future Truck Collider in an underground tunnel with the Vatican and other private sponsors already coming forward with significant funding.
