Scientists Find Long-Sought Majorana Particle 128
New submitter boner writes "In a follow-up to an earlier Slashdot story, scientists at the Technical University of Delft in the Netherlands yesterday published their findings that they have indeed found the Majorana particle. The announcement on the university website provides both a summary of the academic paper (PDF) and background of this groundbreaking discovery. Quoting: 'Majorana fermions are very interesting – not only because their discovery opens up a new and uncharted chapter of fundamental physics; they may also play a role in cosmology. A proposed theory assumes that the mysterious ‘dark matter, which forms the greatest part of the universe, is composed of Majorana fermions. Furthermore, scientists view the particles as fundamental building blocks for the quantum computer.'"
Not Fundamental (Score:5, Informative)
Not a fundamental particle (Score:2, Informative)
My understanding is that what's been discovered is a pseudo-particle, a quantum excitation which behaves like a Majorana particle, not an actual particle like an electron or a neutron.
Re:"On the border between matter and anti-matter" (Score:5, Informative)
A particle that is its own anti-particle? Sounds pretty special! Of course, that would also describe photons, the commonest particle in the universe.
Come on, science reporting.
Photons are bosons. Bosons being their own antiparticle is nothing unusual. A fermion that is its own antiparticle has never been observed in nature before.
Re:MS (Score:5, Informative)
It is their quantum computing research group. http://stationq.ucsb.edu/ [ucsb.edu]
Re:Not Fundamental (Score:4, Informative)
A Majorana particle not THE Majorana Particle (Score:5, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:"On the border between matter and anti-matter" (Score:5, Informative)
There is one possible exception, the neutrino is a half spin fermion and if it really is zero mass it would be its own anti-particle.
Actually it's the other way around: massless Fermions are Dirac, because of Chiral symmetry: in the Standard Model with massless neutrinos, all neutrinos are Dirac particles, with neutrinos being left-handed and all antineutrinos being right-handed. Mass terms break chiral symmetry, and a massive neutrino could be either Dirac or majorana depending on how the mass term is generated:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterile_neutrino#Majorana_or_Dirac.3F [wikipedia.org]
Re:it's own antiparticle? (Score:4, Informative)
Spin. Anti-neutrons spin the opposite way. ("Spin" here being a particle physics term--it's not the same thing as spinning in the macro world).
Re:MS (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, the research program that funded this research is a public private partnership between MS and the Dutch Physics funding agency FOM. Both payed half of the budget for this research.
(I know since worked at the HQ of the funding agency)
Re:it's own antiparticle? (Score:3, Informative)
Actually for the Neutrinos, the question is not yet settled. That's why experimentalists are seeking for neutrino-less double-beta decay.