Amherst Researchers Create Magnetic Monopoles

An anonymous reader writes "Nearly 85 years after pioneering theoretical physicist Paul Dirac predicted the possibility of their existence, an international collaboration led by Amherst College Physics Professor David S. Hall '91 and Aalto University (Finland) Academy Research Fellow Mikko Möttönen has created, identified and photographed synthetic magnetic monopoles in Hall's laboratory on the Amherst campus. The groundbreaking accomplishment paves the way for the detection of the particles in nature, which would be a revolutionary development comparable to the discovery of the electron." That's quite a step beyond detecting monopoles; the Nature abstract is online, but the full paper is paywalled.

Comments

These are NOT Dirac Monopoles

[Geoffrey.landis]

But how many slashdot stories about fusion reactors, methanol fuel cells, or flying cars has actually been more than investor fleecing vaporware?

These are not actually Dirac monopoles. These are magnetic quasiparticles that behave in a way that simulates Dirac monopoles.

The Ars Technicha article has the best explanation:
http://arstechnica.com/science...
Emphasis mine:
"Since we can't seem to find one, though, some researchers decided to emulate monopole behavior using an analogous quantum system. They used a Bose-Einstein condensate: a collection of very cold atoms that behaves like a single quantum system."