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The article talks about 'quantum particle' not 'particle' as in the title. As I understand, a 'quantum particle' is not a real particle, but a kind of 'virtual'
by fjfaase 6y ago
The article talks about 'quantum particle' not 'particle' as in the title. As I understand, a 'quantum particle' is not a real particle, but a kind of 'virtual' particle that can be used to describe certain behavior. It is thus not the discovery of a new particle outside of the standard model as the title might suggest.
- gus_massa 6y agoYou are correct. This is not an new elementary particle like the Higgs' boson or the electron, this a (possible) new quasiparticle that is composed by a few/many elementary particles. The more usual examples is the phonon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonon. You can imagine a phonon as a wave in the crystal lattice, but if you talk to someone that work with solid state they just treat it as a particle. Other examples (described in the article) are the holes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_hole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_hole and even the "electrons" inside a conductor/semiconductor are really a bunch of particles around a real electron, an the mass of the "electron" is different than the real mass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_mass_(solid-state_physics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_mass_(solid-state_ph... .