New State of Matter Detected in a Two-Dimensional Material (phys.org)

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.

Comments

Electrons??

[utdpenguin]

Are thought to be indivisible?? Since when?

Re:Electrons??

[Anonymous Coward]

Electrons cannot be divided into more fundamental particles. They're it, baby.

Re:Electrons??

[HumanWiki]

I came across this from 4yrs ago: http://www.popsci.com/science/...

Re:Electrons??

[Baloroth]

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??

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Are thought to be indivisible?? Since when?

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.

Re:A bit behind the times

[Anonymous Coward]

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 ]

Re:Magnetic monopoles?

[Anonymous Coward]

No.

Re:Standard Model?

[ceoyoyo]

No. It's all about pseudoparticles, which don't actually exist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... has a better description. Click on the link to "fractionalization" which is what this article is talking about.

Re:Way too many buzzwords to sound credible

[Required Snark]

It's has two dimensions for electrons confined in the material. An electron cannot move in the third dimension because it is restricted to motion in a plane. Similarly an electron or other particle (or wave) can be restricted to one dimension in a wire structure, because it only has one degree of freedom, i.e. motion along a line.

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.

Re:Way too many buzzwords to sound credible

[Khashishi]

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.