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Physicists Observe the Majorana Fermion, Which Is Its Own Antiparticle
Charliemopps writes: "For the first time Princeton University scientists have observed a Majorana fermion, a long-predicted but never observed exotic particle that acts as both matter and anti-matter (abstract). "The setup they created starts with an ultrapure crystal of lead, whose atoms naturally line up in alternating rows that leave atomically thin ridges on the crystal's surface. The researchers then deposited pure iron into one of these ridges to create a wire that is just one atom wide and about three atoms thick. ...[Next, they] placed the lead and the embedded iron wire under the scanning-tunneling microscope and cooled the system to -272 degrees Celsius, just a degree above absolute zero. After about two years of painstaking work, they confirmed that superconductivity in the iron wire matched the conditions required for Majorana fermion to be created in their material." The particle is surprisingly stable. Being in both states at once seems to make it interact very weakly with its surrounding material. This could also be a major step towards quantum computing.
Perhaps it would have been much easier and much more accurate to copy/paste simply the original MIT abstract of the article.
The 'discovered' Majorana Fermion is a quasiparticle, created at the boundary edges of two superconductors. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q...
In this case iron and lead, so there is actually no 'new particle' discovered but more or less only a 'quantum point' created by weird behaving electrons ...
And this all together is light years away from anything useful regarding quantum computing (IMHO :) )
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
So what matters here is what's interesting to you? How autistic can you get? There's nothing boring or yawn-worthy about a quasi-particle; all you've done is shown that physics is just not your thing. Unlike the GP post, which is high quality and got moderated appropriately, all you've done is take a dump in this discussion. Good job.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
Well it's a quasiparticle, but it's still a Majorana fermion because fermions don't have to be fundamental particles. Since QM is all just maths anyway, it doesn't really matter if it's a fundamental particle or a quasiparticle. The statistics are all that matter. If this thing doesn't have the right statistics it's not a Majorana fermion. If it does, then it is one by definition. And if it has the right statistics but causes some interaction that wasn't predicted, then I'm afraid we do have to fix our understanding of interactions.