In the fictional
Star Trek universe, starships have a
power core that takes up most of the height from the roof to the floor of the engineering section of the vessel. In the 24th century all Starfleet vessels use matter antimatter power cores. These use matter, heavy hydrogen slush/metal, and antimatter, Antiprotons and Antineutrons.
The result is that the protons and the antiprotons cancel each other out in a small explosive blast as do the neutrons and the antineutrons. The remainder is the electrons and the raw energy created by the reaction. This is all focused by dilithium crystals in to electrons and takes the form of a dense cloud of electroplasma (EP) and is transferred through the EPS conduits (Electro-Plasma System). The electroplasmic conduit system supplies power to the entire vessel. Electro plasmic Conduits have several secondry bypass conduits incase the primary conduits are ruptured. They also have emergency routes that can redirect required energy to battle stations and systems during red alert. These emergency bypasses can increase the direct supply of EPS from the power core to the phasers and shield generators. Another name for a power matter/antimatter core is the warp core as it is used to directly create a subspace bubble around the vessel in order to warp space and allow the ship to enter subspace and thus allow a vessel to reach warp superluminal velocities.
All Wikipedia text
is available under the
terms of the GNU Free Documentation License