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Anonymous ID: 343412 Aug. 13, 2023, 9:39 p.m. No.19354719   🗄️.is 🔗kun

The 'demon particle': Have scientists discovered the impossible? - study

Massless, invisible demon quasiparticles may help scientists better understand how superconductivity works.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF

Published: AUGUST 13, 2023 13:45

 

Physicists have discovered a transparent, massless, and neutral "demon" particle that could help scientists understand superconductors better, according to a new study by researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The study, published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, focused on the search for a particle first theorized by physicist David Pines in 1956. In solids, electrons act erratically, combining into collective units. If enough energy is input, the electrons can form plasmons - waves that act somewhat like a particle (also known as a quasiparticle) - if enough energy is input, although usually, the mass of solids is too large for plasmons (units of plasma, also theorized by Pines along with David Bohm in 1952) to form at room temperature. Demon particles, which can also be conceptualized as waves, would be different. Since they're massless, they can form with any energy and, therefore, at any temperature. Pines theorized that electrons in a solid would be able to combine to form two plasmons which would then fall out of phase with each other in such a way that the peaks of one plasmon's waves would coincide with the valleys of the other plasmon's waves. This new quasiparticle would be massless, neutral, and would not interact with light. Pines referred to this theoretical particle as a "demon."

 

The issue is that most studies on electrons use light, which would prevent them from detecting a demon particle as it does not interact with light.

 

“The vast majority of experiments are done with light and measure optical properties, but being electrically neutral means that demons don’t interact with light,” said Peter Abbamonte, a professor of physics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and lead author of the study in a press release. “A completely different kind of experiment was needed.”

A happy demonic accident

 

Abbamonte and his team happened upon the demon quasiparticle somewhat by accident. The team was studying the electronic properties of a material called strontium ruthenate (Sr2RuO4) because it is similar to high-temperature superconductors and yet isn't one.

https://www.jpost.com/science/article-754568

 

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