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

Plus, they're worth 25 RU

[nightfire-unique]

.. and can certainly help in the fight against the Ur-Quan!

Monopole Magnets

[Anonymous Coward]

"The secrets of magnetism"

Requires Superstring Theory, Silksteel Alloys

Leads to Nanominiaturization, Unified Field Theory
Enables: Terraform Mag Tube

Re:Verry cool IF TRUE

[tomhath]

FTFA:

Hall's team adopted an innovative approach to investigating Dirac's theory, creating and identifying synthetic magnetic monopoles in an artificial magnetic field generated by a Bose-Einstein condensate, an extremely cold atomic gas tens of billionths of a degree warmer than absolute zero.

"Verry cool" is an understatement.

This is cool, but

[Anonymous Coward]

they haven't really found a magnetic monopole. They've created a long skinny solenoid with ends that are far enough apart that they look like independent monopoles.

Great physics, terrible summary.

Pseudoparticles

[Sockatume]

These are pseudoparticles. They're like magnetic monopoles in almost all ways, but they arise from the collective motion of other particles rather than actually existing in and of themselves (think about having an electron hole, versus having an actual positron). The breakthrough is that they've made the first pseudoparticle in a quantum mechanical regime that allows it to behave consistently with the real particle.

"but the full paper is paywalled"

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you are really up on your Maxwell's equations and condensed matter physics, you wouldn't get much out of the actual paper. When I hear all the bitching and moaning about paywalled papers and how "the people" need to see the paper, I can't help but think that 99.999% of "the people" couldn't get past the intro paragraph because of all the field-specific details. That's why there are places like Scientific American and numerous science-writer blogs to translate this for the layman. If you can understand the following, then you most likely have access to the actual article, and if you don't know what this all means, then you are far better off going for the layman's summary:

The spinor order parameter corresponding to the Dirac monopole14,17 is generated by an adiabatic spin rotation in response to a time-varying magnetic field, B(r, t). Similar spin rotations have been used to create multiply quantized vortices18 and skyrmion spin textures19. The order parameter Y(r, t)5y(r, t)f(r, t) is the product of a scalar order parameter, y, and a spinor, f~ðfz1,f0,f{1T¼^ jfi, where fm5Æmjfæ represents the mth spinor component along z. The condensate is initially spin-polarized along the z axis, that is, f5(1, 0, 0)T. Following the method introduced in ref. 14, a magnetic field Bðr,t~bqðxx^zy^y{2z^zzBzðt^z is applied, where bq.0 is the strength of a quadrupole field gradient and Bz(t) is a uniform bias field. The magnetic field zero is initially located on the z axis at z~Bzð0=(2bq)?Z, where Z is the axial Thomas–Fermi radius of the condensate. The spin rotation occurs as Bz is reduced, drawing the magnetic field zero into the region occupied by the superfluid.

Re:Contradicts current theory?

[meta-monkey]

So you're saying there's a chance...?

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."