Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Physicists Detect Elusive Orbiton By "Splitting" Electron

Posted by samzenpus on from the break-it-down dept.

ananyo writes "Condensed-matter physicists have managed to detect the third constituent of an electron — its 'orbiton'. Isolated electrons cannot be split into smaller components, earning them the designation of a fundamental particle. But in the 1980s, physicists predicted that electrons in a one-dimensional chain of atoms could be split into three quasiparticles: a 'holon' carrying the electron's charge, a 'spinon' carrying its spin and an 'orbiton' carrying its orbital location. In 1996, physicists split an electron into a holon and spinon. Now, van den Brink and his colleagues have broken an electron into an orbiton and a spinon (abstract). Orbitons could also aid the quest to build a quantum computer — one stumbling block has been that quantum effects are typically destroyed before calculations can be performed. But as orbital transitions are extremely fast, encoding information in orbitons could be one way to overcome that hurdle."

6 of 131 comments (clear)

  1. Fantasy by countach · · Score: 5, Funny

    Let's face it... the particle physicists make all this stuff up. Somehow they figured out how to use particle colliders to synthesise crack cocaine, and ever since then the stuff they've been coming out with has been ever more fantastical.

    1. Re:Fantasy by mwvdlee · · Score: 3, Funny

      How about bring up something interesting like how Mott insulators [...] are themselves interesting materials

      What? You think crack cocaine isn't interesting material?

      --
      Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
    2. Re:Fantasy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

      How about bring up something interesting like how Mott insulators (in particular, they used strontium-copper oxide) are themselves interesting materials in that they point out flaws in conventional band theory. They really should conduct electricity but are clearly insulators.

      Sure, here it goes:

      Superior human beings (like you and I, who talk mainly of strontium-copper oxide Mott insultators, and NOT like that un-funny, un-witty clueless IT/CS/even EE!!! techies, fron now on referred as UFUWCICEEE) point out flaws in conventional band theory. That's why we are here in life. In fact, that is because ultimately our superior brain IS a Mott insulator. And this is what prevent us from laughing at such ignorant, banal jokes made by UFUWCICEEEs, because although Mott insulators really should conduct the electricity between our brains, our hearts and our ass, they don't!!!! They are insulators, and so the electrical connection doesn't occur.

      I too feel sorry for all those inferior UFUWCICEEEs who also can't stop mispelling "Mott insulator" as "Mott insultator" and other unscientific stuff. Dude, don't we rock? Aren't we so much better? Yeah, I know.

  2. Re:What would the Megatron be? by craznar · · Score: 3, Funny

    Damn - a transformer got in the way of my post.

    That should be Megaton and WTFaton ...

    --
    EMail: 0110001101100010010000000110001101110010 0110000101111010011011100110000101110010 0010111001100011011011110110
  3. There is a fourth fundamental particle... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    ..it is called a "holdon".

    As in; hold on, we better check these results again.

  4. Re:Lord, Jewsus! by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 5, Funny

    Physicists should use the D&D alignment and class system to assign particle names. Muon neutrino becomes neutral evil cleric, Up quark is lawful good fighter, etc.