This Incredible Particle Only Arises in Two Dimensions

 

For decades, scientists have merely guessed it exists. They finally found proof it does.

Physicists have confirmed the existence of an extraordinary,  flat particle that could be the key that unlocks quantum computing.

What is the rare and improbable anyon, and how on Earth did scientists verify them?

“[T]hese particle-like objects only arise in realms confined to two dimensions, and then only under certain circumstances—like at temperatures near absolute zero and in the presence of a strong magnetic field,” Discover explains.

Scientists have theorized about these flat, peculiar “particle-like objects” since the 1980s, and the very nature of them has made it sometimes seem impossible to ever verify them. But the qualities scientists believe anyons have also made them sound very valuable to quantum research and, now, quantum computers.

The objects have many possible positions and "remember," in a way, what has happened. In a press release earlier this fall, Purdue University explains more about the value of anyons: “Anyons have characteristics not seen in other subatomic particles, including exhibiting fractional charge and fractional statistics that maintain a ‘memory’ of their interactions with other quasiparticles by inducing quantum mechanical phase changes. Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist Frank Wilczek, professor of physics at MIT, gave these quasiparticles the tongue-in-cheek name ‘anyon’" due to their strange behavior because unlike other types of particles, they can adopt ‘any’ quantum phase when their positions are exchanged.”

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