3 ms·
Ok… this still needs to be duplicated, but if it is confirmed it is somewhat of a big deal. They’re not “real” monopoles, in the sense of individual particles
by Anon84 3y ago
Ok… this still needs to be duplicated, but if it is confirmed it is somewhat of a big deal.
They’re not “real” monopoles, in the sense of individual particles that generate a divergent field but rather a quasi-particle (the collective behavior of many individual atoms producing this overall effect).
In the worlds of the authors:
“These monopoles are a collective state of many spins that twirl around a singularity rather than a single fixed particle, so they emerge through many-body interactions. The result is a tiny, localised stable particle with diverging magnetic field coming out of it,” said co-first author Dr Hariom Jani, from the University of Oxford.
That being said, the applications are still pretty exciting and this is something that many people wouldn’t have tought possible at all.
- Loughla 3y agoSo the only context I have for monopoles comes from the Ringworld books and stories (I'm pretty sure that was it). What are the actual uses? I can't get the article to load, if that's in there.
- Anon84 3y agoOne practical one would be super fast computer memory
- chaps 3y agoInflationary cosmology leans a lot on the existence of magnet monopoles.
- foota 3y agoWhy is this, if you don't mind?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- carabiner 3y agoVideo games will be more realistic.
- hnuser123456 3y agoPerpetual motion machine. Make a ring of monopoles all facing one direction along the circumference of the ring. Put a 2nd ring of opposing monopoles inside facing the opposite direction along the ring.
- whatshisface 3y agoIf that would work with magnets it'd work with electric charges.
- radarsat1 3y agoStupid question. If you develop a quasi-particle monopole, which I guess is something that is not a monopole but behaves like one, can you use it in such a configuration and get the behaviour you are describing?
- MostlyStable 3y agoOthers have claimed that quasi particle monopoles have been discovered before. So why would this be somewhat of a big deal if real/duplicated?
- EA-3167 3y agoCorrect, this is part of research going back about a decade. https://www.nature.com/articles/nmat3905 https://www.nature.com/articles/nmat3905
- ryukoposting 3y agoThe article mentions the significance of them being in Hematite, a naturally occuring mineral.
- tbrownaw 3y agoThis is 2d monopoles on the 2d surface of a material. This is equivalent to propping up a horseshoe magnet with the ends up, and laying a piece of paper across it; that also gives you a 2d surface with a pair of monopoles on it. It's still interesting and probably useful for building things, but it's not "we broke a known law of physics".
- SamBam 3y agoYour analogy would imply that the other pole exists, it's just someplace else. Is that what the paper is suggesting? I didn't see that, but admittedly most of it went over my head.
- tbrownaw 3y agoI don't think the paper cares, since it's about how the fields on the surface behave locally while the other pole needing to exist (and of course it could be split into multiple weaker ones, or smeared out, or whatever) is an invariant that applies to the object as a whole.
- KRAKRISMOTT 3y ago> They’re not “real” monopoles, in the sense of individual particles that generate a divergent field but rather a quasi-particle (the collective behavior of many individual atoms producing this overall effect). Can this be replicated on the macro scale with meta materials?