Anion study reveals that the quantum world is stranger than previously thought
The world is much more complicated than it seems to us at first glance, and scientists, discovering more and more oddities, only confirm this fact.
So a scientific group from Purdue University (USA, Indiana) conducted a unique experiment and received confirmation special behavior of electrons, in which anyions are formed - quasiparticles that can exist only in two-dimensional systems. Now I will briefly talk about these particles and explain why they are so strange and unique.
Anyions - what is it and when were they discovered
Until the moment when anyons were discovered, elementary particles were conventionally divided into only two types:
- Fermions. These particles include, for example, electrons.
- Bosons. These particles include, for example, photons.
Bosons and fermions have significant differences, according to which:
- fermions can have fractional spin, but bosons do not;
- fermions have antiparticles, but bosons do not;
- Pauli's exclusion applies only to fermions.
They started talking about the anyons in 1977. It was then that the theoretical substantiation of the new particle was given by Norwegian theoretical physicists.
And in essence, these unique particles are something in common (with their deviations) between bosons and fermions and cannot be classified in any category. The name itself has the root ANY - which is translated from English as "Anyone, everyone."
So anyons have unique characteristics: for example, they have a fractional charge, as well as fractional quantum statistics. Moreover, they have the properties of memory and store information about the interaction with other quasiparticles.
Anyons can exist only in special cases of excitation of electrons, and, as it turned out, they really have a lower charge than the elementary charge of an electron. It seemed impossible - but it is a fact.
New Anion Research
For the first time experimentally the existence of anyions was confirmed in 2005 by physicists at Stony Brook University (USA, New York). And the new work of American scientists has provided more experimental data confirming the very existence of anyions.
In the new work, the engineers managed to create such conditions under which the electrons moved along a special labyrinth, realized in a nanoscale interferometer made of gallium arsenide and aluminum-gallium arsenide.
At the same time, this labyrinth was influenced by a strong magnetic field with induction of 9 T and cooling to 10 millikelvin.
At the same time, the resulting picture, which scientists began to call the "pajama diagram", indicated the appearance of anyions.
Scientists continue their research and plans to complicate the laboratory setup so that it becomes possible to control the number of quasiparticles and try to control their behavior in the chamber.
This study first showed that the quantum world is much more complex and confusing than was considered earlier, and, quite possibly, in the future particles will be discovered, which are now considered simply impossible.
And from a practical point of view, new research on anyons will help create highly efficient quantum computers of the future.
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