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positron: Quick Facts

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News •

Physicists trap a single antimatter particle for a month • Oct. 21, 2026, 3:00 AM ET (Scientific American)

Facts

Also Known As antielectron • positive electron • anti-electron

Photos

Figure 5: The world lines of an electron (moving forward in time) and a positron (moving backward in time) that annihilate into two photons (see text).
electrons and positrons in a bubble chamber
Computer-generated diagram showing particle tracks from a proton-antiproton collision at the center of the UA1 detector at CERN, with labeled paths for electron and positron.
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Key People

P.A.M. Dirac
P.A.M. Dirac
English physicist
Carl David Anderson
Carl David Anderson
American physicist