New State of Matter Detected in a Two-Dimensional Material (phys.org) 71
An anonymous reader cites a report on Phys.org: An international team of researchers have found evidence of a mysterious new state of matter, first predicted 40 years ago, in a real material. This state, known as a quantum spin liquid, causes electrons -- thought to be indivisible building blocks of nature -- to break into pieces. The researchers, including physicists from the University of Cambridge, measured the first signatures of these fractional particles, known as Majorana fermions, in a two-dimensional material with a structure similar to graphene. Their experimental results successfully matched with one of the main theoretical models for a quantum spin liquid, known as a Kitaev model. The results are reported in the journal Nature Materials. Quantum spin liquids are mysterious states of matter which are thought to be hiding in certain magnetic materials, but had not been conclusively sighted in nature. The observation of one of their most intriguing properties -- electron splitting, or fractionalisation -- in real materials is a breakthrough. The resulting Majorana fermions may be used as building blocks of quantum computers, which would be far faster than conventional computers and would be able to perform calculations that could not be done otherwise.
Electrons?? (Score:1, Informative)
Are thought to be indivisible?? Since when?
Re:Electrons?? (Score:4, Interesting)
What's worse is that Majorana fermions are their own anti-particle - so they have no charge - so if the electron split into three of them - where did it's charge go?
This stuff is *hard* to understand!
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What's worse is that Majorana fermions are their own anti-particle - so they have no charge - so if the electron split into three of them - where did it's charge go?
This stuff is *hard* to understand!
Can the charge be consumed by the action of splitting? I really don't know about sub-atomic kinetics but the energy has to go somewhere so potential(charge) to kinetic(split) is the only thing I see as an opening... otherwise I'm really not happy with energy just evaporating... Hey maybe there really is æther but it's a very short lived kinetic property of matter!
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This is typical of the rag known as Nature that likes to call itself a journal. No self-respecting scientist would ever publish in it. Absolute garbage. The media loves it though, biologists get to pretend to be real scientists and the main stream media buys it.
No kidding. They actually published a hoax article from a couple of pranksters [nature.com] about the double helix form of DNA.
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It re-enfrobulates the flux of the, er, doo-hicky causing the doo-dad to re-distrube the, umm, polarity of the charge of the base pairs leading to a, err, dispersion of the charge across an, um, er, tensor field exhibiting Jacobian properties and cancelling out the, um, potentiation of the matrix. Yeah, that's is, potentiation of the matrix.
It's quite simple, really. ;-)
Re:Electrons?? (Score:4, Informative)
per the 1920s. now we know better. (Score:2, Insightful)
subatomic physics have come a long way from the Greeks.
Re:Electrons?? (Score:4, Interesting)
Dual slot experiments show that electrons have wave-like properties. The electron is indivisible and point-like as far as we know. In quantum mechanics going through two slits at the same time does not mean you're divisible.
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Dual slot experiments show that electrons have wave-like properties. The electron is indivisible and point-like as far as we know. In quantum mechanics going through two slits at the same time does not mean you're divisible.
Well, that's one of many areas where quantum mechanics gets hairy. If you see patterns where a single particle behaves like you'd expect from a system of particles (quasi-particles, pseudo-particles) does that mean it actually consists of even smaller particles or not even though we can't pull them apart and study them individually? I think that's the current state of quarks, even though atoms are made up from quarks we've never been able to pull a proton apart and study one in isolation.
I mean we can send
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It has been a little while for me, but wasn't the dual slot experiment used to show that photons acted like a wave, not electrons?
Re:Electrons?? (Score:4, Informative)
second chapter talks about muons (Score:2)
but there used to be multiple theories about electron cathode rays, too, so someday they'll all find they're talking the same thing.
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In the standard model, electrons are indivisible.
Protons and neutrons are made of quarks and are divisible, even though they really don't like it.
Re:Electrons?? (Score:5, Informative)
Since the past 100 years or so. They're point particles, which means they have no internal structure, and aren't composed of any other particles. They can be destroyed or created, but that's not division.
You can also split an electron's wavefunction into multiple pieces, so that it occupies certain distinct regions with various probability amplitude (and these split wavefunctions can actually have physical effects: while I'm not enough of an expert on condensed matter to say for sure, a quick skim of the paper indicates that something like that is what is happening here), that's a bit different from dividing the electron.
Re:Electrons?? (Score:4, Informative)
Electrons were certainly thought to be indivisible when first discovered (see also, atoms, protons). The answer to "since when", because that's since the electron was discovered in 1897. But you meant to imply that the electron was already know to be constituted of component particles. So a better way to do that would be an incredulous "is this XXXX?" or similar that expressed a belief it was already common knowledge.
Pedantry aside, wikipedia tells me that all 6 leptons (which include electrons) are indivisible. So, I dunno. The Standard Model certainly assumes that they are.
Magnetic monopoles? (Score:2)
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No.
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No, but we're one step closer to having a disintegration ray. Time to upgrade those sharks!
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The magnetic monopoles in spin lattices are "quasiparticles". They aren't fundamental particles. They are basically simulations of monopoles on a crystal lattice. But these crystal patterns can still exist at a quantum scale, so they still act like particles.
This explains it if you understand enough physics. http://www.nature.com/nature/j... [nature.com]
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Uhm... I know Physics was a while ago for me - but can you point to some of that 'elementary science' that indicates how electrons have been thought to be divisible for 50 years?
At least wikipedia seems to disagree: "Electrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family,[9] and are generally thought to be elementary particles because they have no known components or substructure."
[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron ]
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You've posted this multiple times. I dare you to explain why the dual slit experiments show electrons to be divisible.
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Exactly how would electron divisibility explain the dual-slot experiment? You get interference patterns when you're firing only one or a whole bunch of electrons at a time. If you detect which slot each electron is going through, you get no interference patterns no matter how many. If electrons split into two and headed for the slots, why do you think we'd get interference patterns?
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I was going to say that I had thought so, but then I realized that my HS physics class WAS half a century ago!
Way too many buzzwords to sound credible (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Way too many buzzwords to sound credible (Score:5, Informative)
Your objection assumes that our experience of the world, in this case three dimensions, applies at all scale and in all conditions. Modern physics refutes this assumption.
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What kind of horse shit is this?
It's a 3-dimensional material and the electrons within it will move in 3 dimensions whether you want them to or not. The thinner you make it, the more likely it'll be for the electron to tunnel out, Gotta Go Dawg! style. I guess you could restrict them to 2 dimensions if you were at absolute zero, but you'd never be able to check that to verify.
Re:Way too many buzzwords to sound credible (Score:4, Informative)
You know, I thought a journalist got a little too carried away, but actually it was the authors of the scientific paper who made these statements.
Anyways, the electrons don't break apart. The "fractional" particles are just quasiparticles which are just labels of particular patterns found in the spins in crystal lattices. These are not fundamental particles.
Re:Standard Model? (Score:4, Informative)
No. It's all about pseudoparticles, which don't actually exist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] has a better description. Click on the link to "fractionalization" which is what this article is talking about.
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For all you folks who are more versed in electrical engineering than physics, a good example of a quasiparticle is positively charged "holes". These are a lot like electrons but are clearly not fundamental particles.
Quantum computers... (Score:2)
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we should have had working quantum computers 5 years ago
You can put that down to bad luck. Every time we've opened a quantum computer to determine if it is working or not, the bottle of acid has broken and the quantum computer is dead...
Schrodinger's catastrophe (Score:3)
schmolid schmiquid schmass (Score:2)
An international team of researchers have found evidence of a mysterious new state of matter... known as a quantum spin liquid... in a two-dimensional material.
Damn. That's a wasted opportunity. I would have called it "flatsma".
Divisibility explained (Score:3)
A comment explains the "divisibility":