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w00t! We have fan art. This was sent in by Joey V along with the question How is antimatter made?

A high-energy electron, when it comes near a nucleus, will feel the electric field of the charged nucleus, and be deflected in its path. The larger the charge of the nucleus, the more frequently this deflection will happen at large angles. When a fast electron is diverted from its straitght-line path, it radiates some of its energy away as photons. High-energy photons, when they come near another nucleus, can spontaneously turn into an electron-positron pair (conserving charge and the “number of electrons”, which both add to zero since a positron has positive charge and is an anti-electron). The second nucleus is there to exchange energy and momentum with, otherwise you cannot start with a photon (zero mass) and end up with two objects with mass and conserve energy and momentum.

If the electron and positron thus produced have enough energy, they can undergo scattering with more nuclei, radiate photons which can pair-produce more electrons and positrons, creating a whole “shower” of electrons, positrons, and photons. Positrons then can be separated away with magnets and collected in particle accelerators.

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