Product9 wrote:Other particles besides gamma ray photons can be produced depending on the conditions.
Particle-antiparticle reactions are very finicky. There's all those elementary particles to consider. For instance, positrons and protons do annihilate each other, but only under certain circumstances.
Product9 wrote:But I think we've gone pretty far off topic. The Tannhauser explodes the air because of annihilation, that much is obvious. We can also assume the number of positrons outnumber the electrons in the air the beam is passing through, otherwise the beam wouldn't get anywhere. And we can further assume that solid or liquid targets have far more electrons than the positrons in the beam, which is why there is a large explosion and the lack of penetration.
To take that example of the Tannhäuser impacting the water in the Freedom/Impulse fight, water has a density of 10^29 atoms per cubic meter. The beam itself must be dense enough to annihilate with water, but pass through atmosphere more or less intact.
Those positrons, however, must maintain some form of coherence before reaching their target. I'm going to speculate in regards to that and Destiny's positron reflectors: coherence (whether as an offensive beam or a defensive shield) is maintained with the same kind of magnetic field that holds plasma together in a beam saber. Note that these positron reflectors are a form of energy shield, but they're, somehow, not the same as the MS-carried beam shields developed by ZAFT, nor the force field generated by the Akatsuki's DRAGOONs.
As an interesting note, I found out about an exotic, unstable type of atom called
positronium, which is basically an electron and a positron sharing the same orbit. A university in London operates, believe it or not,
a real positronium beam for research.
Product9 wrote:As for the Tannhauser being more powerful, I can't think of any examples. The Lohengrin Gate comes to mind, but that was a special case. I guess you could probably say the Archangel's two Lohengrins are comparable to the Minerva's single Tannhauser, but that would be a pretty big assumption. Are there any numbers to back any of this up?
Can't help you with numbers, but the animation in both series shows the Lohengrins more or less as a powerful form of beam. The Tannhäuser, meanwhile, is almost
apocalyptic in nature. Its impact with the Gells-Ghe's reflector generated a freaking mushroom cloud and a wind gust strong enough to throw mobile suits around like paper dolls. Something similar happened on the moon during the attack on Requiem. And we already discussed enough about the Impulse/Freedom fight.
Product9 wrote:Also, that picture is awesome, as is that unofficial description image.
I wish I had more information about it. The only clue I was able to gather with OCR is, I think, a name: Funato Jun'ni (船戸潤二). Searching on Yahoo! Japan only comes back with results about magazines: Dengeki Hobby, Hobby Japan, etc.
Product9 wrote:I find this kind of refreshing, because if this was UC they'd just say "Minovsky particles, and don't ask why."
Or they'd use psycoframe rainbow magic.
Well, the Cosmic Era isn't completely free of that. Mirage Colloid turns things invisible, infects computers with viruses and can bend beams both offensively and defensively.