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Testing CPT symmetry in ortho-positronium decays with positronium annihilation tomography.

ABSTRACT: Charged lepton system symmetry under combined charge, parity, and time-reversal transformation (CPT) remains scarcely tested. Despite stringent quantum-electrodynamic limits, discrepancies in predictions for the electron-positron bound state (positronium atom) motivate further investigation, including fundamental symmetry tests. While CPT noninvariance effects could be manifested in non-vanishing angular correlations between final-state photons and spin of annihilating positronium, measurements were previously limited by knowledge of the latter. Here, we demonstrate tomographic reconstruction techniques applied to three-photon annihilations of ortho-positronium atoms to estimate their spin polarisation without magnetic field or polarised positronium source. We use a plastic-scintillator-based positron-emission-tomography scanner to record ortho-positronium (o-Ps) annihilations with single-event estimation of o-Ps spin and determine the complete spectrum of an angular correlation operator sensitive to CPT-violating effects. We find no violation at the precision level of 10^-4, with an over threefold improvement on the previous measurement.

SUBMITTER: Moskal P

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8476595 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Testing CPT symmetry in ortho-positronium decays with positronium annihilation tomography.

Moskal P P Gajos A A Mohammed M M Chhokar J J Chug N N Curceanu C C Czerwiński E E Dadgar M M Dulski K K Gorgol M M Goworek J J Hiesmayr B C BC Jasińska B B Kacprzak K K Kapłon Ł Ł Karimi H H Kisielewska D D Klimaszewski K K Korcyl G G Kowalski P P Krawczyk N N Krzemień W W Kozik T T Kubicz E E Niedźwiecki S S Parzych S S Pawlik-Niedźwiecka M M Raczyński L L Raj J J Sharma S S Choudhary S S Shopa R Y RY Sienkiewicz A A Silarski M M Skurzok M M Stępień E Ł EŁ Tayefi F F Wiślicki W W

Nature communications 20210927 1

Charged lepton system symmetry under combined charge, parity, and time-reversal transformation (CPT) remains scarcely tested. Despite stringent quantum-electrodynamic limits, discrepancies in predictions for the electron-positron bound state (positronium atom) motivate further investigation, including fundamental symmetry tests. While CPT noninvariance effects could be manifested in non-vanishing angular correlations between final-state photons and spin of annihilating positronium, measurements ...[more]

PMID: 34580294

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Project description:BackgroundPositron emission tomography (PET) traditionally uses coincident annihilation photons emitted from a positron interacting with an electron to localize cancer within the body. The formation of positronium (Ps), a bonded electron-positron pair, has not been utilized in clinical applications of PET due to the need to detect either the emission of a prompt gamma ray or the decay of higher-order coincident events. Assessment of the lifetime of the formed Ps, however, can potentially yield additional diagnostic information of the surrounding tissue because Ps properties vary due to void size and molecular composition. To assess the feasibility of measuring Ps lifetimes with a PET scanner, experiments were performed in a Biograph Vision Quadra (Siemens Healthineers). Quadra is a long-axial field-of-view (LA-FOV) PET scanner capable of producing list-mode data from single interaction events.ResultsOrtho-Ps (o-Ps) lifetimes were measured for quartz-glass and polycarbonate samples using a 22Na positron source. Results produced o-Ps lifetimes of 1.538 ± 0.036 ns for the quartz glass and 1.927 ± 0.042 ns for the polycarbonate. Both o-Ps lifetimes were determined using a double-exponential fit to the time-difference distribution between the emission of a prompt gamma ray and the annihilation of the correlated positron. The measured values match within a single standard deviation of previously published results. The quartz-glass samples were additional measured with 82Rb , 68 Ga and 124I to validate the lifetime using clinically available sources. A double-exponential fit was initially chosen as a similar methodology to previously published works, however, an exponentially-modified Gaussian distribution fit to each lifetime more-accurately models the data. A Bayesian method was used to estimate the variables of the fit and o-Ps lifetime results are reported using this methodology for the three clinical isotopes: 1.59 ± 0.03 ns for 82Rb , 1.58 ± 0.07 ns for 68Ga and 1.62 ± 0.01 ns for 124I . The impact of scatter and attenuation on the o-Ps lifetime was also assessed by analyzing a water-filled uniform cylinder (20 ϕ × 30 cm 3 ) with an added 82Rb solution. Lifetimes were extracted for various regions of the cylinder and while there is a shape difference in the lifetime due to scatter, the extracted o-Ps lifetime of the water, 1.815 ± 0.013 ns, agrees with previously published results.ConclusionOverall, the methodology presented in this manuscript demonstrates the repeatability of Ps lifetime measurements with clinically available isotopes in a commercially-available LA-FOV PET scanner. This validation work lays the foundation for future in-vivo patient scans with Quadra.

Project description:It was recently demonstrated that newly invented positronium imaging may be used for improving cancer diagnostics by providing additional information about tissue pathology with respect to the standardized uptake value currently available in positron emission tomography (PET). Positronium imaging utilizes the properties of positronium atoms, which are built from the electrons and positrons produced in the body during PET examinations. We hypothesized that positronium imaging would be sensitive to the in vitro discrimination of tumor-like three-dimensional structures (spheroids) built of melanoma cell lines with different cancer activities and biological properties. The lifetime of ortho-positronium (o-Ps) was evaluated in melanoma spheroids from two cell lines (WM266-4 and WM115) differing in the stage of malignancy. Additionally, we considered parameters such as the cell number, spheroid size and melanoma malignancy to evaluate their relationship with the o-Ps lifetime. We demonstrate pilot results for o-Ps lifetime measurement in extracellular matrix-free spheroids. With the statistical significance of two standard deviations, we demonstrated that the higher the degree of malignancy and the rate of proliferation of neoplastic cells, the shorter the lifetime of ortho-positronium. In particular, we observed the following indications encouraging further research: (i) WM266-4 spheroids characterized by a higher proliferation rate and malignancy showed a shorter o-Ps lifetime than WM115 spheroids characterized by a lower growth rate. (ii) Both cell lines showed a decrease in the lifetime of o-Ps after spheroid generation on day 8 compared to day 4 in culture, and the mean o-Ps lifetime was longer for spheroids formed from WM115 cells than for those formed from WM266-4 cells, regardless of spheroid age. The results of this study revealed that positronium is a promising biomarker that may be applied in PET diagnostics for the assessment of the degree of cancer malignancy.

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Testing CPT symmetry in ortho-positronium decays with positronium annihilation tomography.

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Testing CPT symmetry in ortho-positronium decays with positronium annihilation tomography.

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