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I said "physical" because I wanted to include things other than elementary particles but that behave in a way consistent with what I think is a typical non-phys
by ivalm 6y ago
I said "physical" because I wanted to include things other than elementary particles but that behave in a way consistent with what I think is a typical non-physicist general intuition about particles: "somewhat long lived (sufficient to be resolved not just by decay products) point-like objects".
Some elementary particles (quarks) don't really obey a lot of this intuition. Some none-elementary particles, for example protons/neutrons, do follow a lot of this intuition. Even some topological order quasiparticle in CMP follow this intuition -- magnetic skyrmions can be localized, can be imaged, have particle-like scattering.
Anyons don't follow this particle intuition.
- contravariant 6y agoYeah, the problem with that is that a lot of quasiparticles do follow that intuition (as do anyons except they exist in a 2D world that isn't normally possible to experiment in). In particular photons travelling through a medium are usually viewed as quasiparticles travelling slower than the speed of light, rather than a complex system of interactions. These particles have exactly the same kinds of behaviour as normal particles, similar to photons except with mass.