Here’s what you’ll learn while reading this story:
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In three-dimensional particle physics, elementary particles are nicely divided into fermions and bosons. But in lower dimensions, things are less clear.
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These dimensions host a “third kingdom” of quasiparticles called anyons, whose properties fall somewhere between the quantum descriptions of fermions and bosons.
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In 2020, scientists experimentally discovered the existence of anyons in two-dimensional space, and in two new studies, scientists described the existence of anyons adjustable Any subon is in one– Dimensional spaces (and describe their properties).
When you dig into the nature of reality—the elementary particles that make up you, me, and everything around us in three dimensions—things are divided nicely into two categories: fermions and bosons. These two types of particles are primarily defined by their atomic spin (in quantum mechanics terms), with bosons (photons, gluons, Higgs, W and Z bosons) having integer spin values ​​and fermions (protons, neutrons, electrons, neutrinos) having half-integer spin values. While two bosons can occupy the same quantum state (which is why photons can pass through each other), two fermions can’t – which is a good thing, because if they could, you’d be falling off the floor right now.
But like most things in science, things don’t always Arranged so neatly. For example, for half a century scientists have known about anyons that exist in two dimensions. Such quasiparticles are essentially anything between bosons and fermions, which explains why American physicist Frank Wilczek named them “anyons,” or simply anyons. However, it was not until 2020 that these strange particles were experimentally observed in single-atom-thick (two-dimensional) semiconductors. “We have bosons and fermions, and now we have a third kingdom,” Wilczek said at the time. “This is definitely a milestone.”
Now, scientists from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) and the University of Oklahoma report the existence of a one-dimensional system in which anyons can exist. In two separate papers – both published in the journal Physical Review A—Researchers describe Adjustable anyon recipe and their theoretical propertiesexplore new corners of the “Third Kingdom” of elementary particles.
“Every particle in our universe seems to fall strictly into one of two categories: a boson or a fermion. Why aren’t there others?” Thomas Busch, co-author of both OIST studies, said in a press statement. “With this work, we have now opened the door to improving our understanding of the fundamental properties of the quantum world, and it is very exciting to see where theoretical and experimental physics take us.”
Anyons only exist in lower dimensions because, say Very Simply put, particles in these dimensions have fewer options for movement. Raúl Hidalgo-Sacoton (PhD student at OIST) describes the existence in 3D space of an “exchange factor”, a property that requires that when two electrons exchange places, they must obey a simple rule governing the mathematical statistics of this event: its square must equal 1, which means that all particles are either -1 (fermions) or 1 (bosons).
In two dimensions, however, things are not that simple: “To satisfy the law of indistinguishability, we need a continuous range of exchange factors to account for the exchange, depending on the exact twists and turns of the path,” Hidalgo-Saccoto said in a press statement. Any value in the range -1 to 1 is considered an anyon.
In this study, Busch, Hidalgo-Sacoto and their colleague Doerte Blume (University of Oklahoma) found that this boson-fermion binary remains broken in one dimension, and they even discovered a way to specifically tune the exchange factor. Since motion in one dimension is limited, particles must pass through each other, which causes the exchange factors to be different than in higher dimensions. This may be related to the strength of short-range interactions between particles.
“Not only did we establish the possibility that one-dimensional anyons exist, we also showed how to plot their exchange statistics,” Bush said in a press statement. “We are excited to see what future discoveries are made in this area and what it can tell us about the fundamental physics of the universe.”
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