Antimatter charge

Purpose
The Antimatter Charge, is a powerful explosive weapon used by the Covenant.

The Covenant uses antimatter charges in a variety of ways, such as to create an opening in ship armor during boarding or as an anti-vehicle and anti-personnel weapon. They are mentioned first in Halo: CE in the beginning cut-scene when Cortana exclaims that the Covenant have destroyed the MAC gun with the charges. These appear to be the choice and trademark explosives of Ranger Elite teams or boarding parties, as they have sometimes been used to destroy Magnetic Accelerator Cannons aboard ship-to-ship engagements. The bomb seen in Halo 2 uses anti-matter. Antimatter charges are used sparingly, likely as a result of the scarcity of the material and the difficulty in handling such volatile substances.

Any contact between antimatter and normal matter causes a complete conversion of mass to energy, causing a release of electromagnetic radiation.

Only one kilogram of antimatter reacting with one kilogram of matter would yield an explosion of 42.96 megatons, which is almost equivalent to three thousand Hiroshima-bombs (45 Mt combined). An antimatter-matter explosion is the most efficient way of liberating energy, with a 100% yield in the form of radiation.

The charge likely consists of a slurry of hydrogen and anti-hydrogen suspended in a magnetic constriction similar to that used in UNSC fusion drives. The interior would contain a specialized shield designed to produce myriad microscopic honeycombs, with each unit holding a small amount of either hydrogen or anti-hydrogen. Upon impact or detonation, the shield would collapse, and the magnetic bottle would contract, resulting in a critical mass with optimum dispersement.

Trivia

 * An antimatter particle, colliding with a matter particle releases an intact 100% of the energy contained within the particles, while an H-bomb (Hydrogen bomb) only releases about 7% of this energy. This gives a clue to how effective and powerful this force really is.
 * Jen Taylor, as Cortana, had trouble recording the Halo: Combat Evolved line, "It must have been one of their boarding parties, I'd guess an antimatter charge!", joking that "It sounds so weird!".

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