Evidence found of a new particle that also is its own antiparticle: Angel particle - Sensationalist Headlines

[quote]A team of scientists has found evidence for an unusual particle that, bizarrely, is also its own antiparticle. It was first theorized 80 years ago but now looks like it might be a reality. The idea of a particle having its own antiparticle goes back to 1937 when Italian physicist Ettore Majorana (who mysteriously disappeared in 1938) first postulated the theory. He said that within the class of fermions, which include protons, electrons, and neutrons, some particles should have their own antiparticles, which became known as Majorana particles. In this research, the team stacked thin films of two quantum materials together and sent an electrical current through them in a chilled vacuum chamber. The top film was a superconductor, and the bottom one was a magnetic topological insulator. By sweeping a magnet over the stack, the team was then able to modify the speed of electrons. At certain points, this caused what appeared to be Majorana quasiparticles to emerge in pairs along with electrons. One was always deflected away so that the flow of the individual quasiparticles could be measured. [i]“Our team predicted exactly where to find the Majorana fermion and what to look for as it's ‘smoking gun’ experimental signature,”[/i] said Stanford professor Shoucheng Zhan, a senior author on the paper. [i]“This discovery concludes one of the most intensive searches in fundamental physics, which spanned exactly 80 years.”[/i][/quote] This particle has mass. If I'm not mistaken, this means if somewhere in the Universe there is a way to mix matter and antimatter without cancelling each other, finding this was a damn jackpot. Source - [url]http://www.iflscience.com/physics/researchers-discover-angel-particle-which-is-both-matter-and-antimatter-at-the-same-time/[/url] More backstory and name origin explained - [url]http://news.stanford.edu/2017/07/20/evidence-particle-antiparticle/[/url]

:johnnymo1: Someone explain

So how long until people claim that the fact that its called the "ANGEL" particle is proof of X thing, just like the "GOD" particle

I am also certain dude was taken by aliens cause he figured out too much

[QUOTE=J!NX;52500869]So how long until people claim that the fact that its called the "ANGEL" particle is proof of X thing, just like the "GOD" particle[/QUOTE] You can already imagine mobs of angry people yelling for hours with religious details about the implications of using that name and someone replying with a careless voice "nah, dude. We just named it after a movie."

So is our gaming universe called 'Angel Effect'? I could live with this.

Any practical applications?

[QUOTE=Shirt.;52501151]Any practical applications?[/QUOTE] If you'd read the source - [QUOTE=The Source] Although the search for the famous fermion seems more intellectual than practical, he added, it could have real-life implications for building robust quantum computers, although this is admittedly far in the future. [/QUOTE]

when will the devil particle be discovered?

[QUOTE=Ithon;52501175]when will the devil particle be discovered?[/QUOTE] Since it is its own antiparticle, I guess it can be your angel or your devil

When do we rip a hole in the fabric of the universe and something like Evangelion becomes reality?

[quote]A team of scientists has found evidence for an unusual particle that, bizarrely, is also its own antiparticle.[/quote] Just like the most bizarre particle of all: the photon. [editline]24th July 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=The Rifleman;52500863]:johnnymo1: Someone explain[/QUOTE] Yet another [I]astonishing new particle discovery[/I] that is actually just a quasiparticle. "This discovery concludes one of the most intensive searches in fundamental physics, which spanned exactly 80 years.” I think the conclusion would be discovering a [I]fundamental[/I] Majorana fermion. [editline]24th July 2017[/editline] Not to mention that these were probably discovered like 3 other times in the past decade, it's just that they're now pretty certain it's what they think.

[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;52501500]Just like the most bizarre particle of all: the photon. [editline]24th July 2017[/editline] Yet another [I]astonishing new particle discovery[/I] that is actually just a quasiparticle. "This discovery concludes one of the most intensive searches in fundamental physics, which spanned exactly 80 years.” I think the conclusion would be discovering a [I]fundamental[/I] Majorana fermion. [editline]24th July 2017[/editline] Not to mention that these were probably discovered like 3 other times in the past decade, it's just that they're now pretty certain it's what they think.[/QUOTE] What is a quasiparticle in relation to a fundamental particle? Is it similar/related to a virtual particle? Google says this: [quote=Google]a quantum of energy in a crystal lattice or other system of bodies which has momentum and position and can in some respects be regarded as a particle.[/QUOTE] Wikipedia says: [quote]In physics, quasiparticles and collective excitations (which are closely related) are emergent phenomena that occur when a microscopically complicated system such as a solid behaves as if it contained different weakly interacting particles in free space. For example, as an electron travels through a semiconductor, its motion is disturbed in a complex way by its interactions with all of the other electrons and nuclei; however it approximately behaves like an electron with a different mass (effective mass) traveling unperturbed through free space. This "electron" with a different mass is called an "electron quasiparticle".[/quote] [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasiparticle[/url] So I'm guessing it isn't an actual new type of particle, but is instead one or more of a collection of the regular fundamental particles contained within a solid that behaves differently enough within very specific circumstances to be labeled as something else.

[QUOTE=Zyler;52501595]What is a quasiparticle in relation to a fundamental particle? Is it similar/related to a virtual particle? Google says this: Wikipedia says: [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasiparticle[/url] So I'm guessing it isn't an actual new type of particle, but is instead one or more of a collection of the regular fundamental particles contained within a solid that behaves differently enough within very specific circumstances to be labeled as something else.[/QUOTE] Which is precisely why it's really not as exciting as they make it seem

[QUOTE=Abaddabadon;52501258]When do we rip a hole in the fabric of the universe and something like Evangelion becomes reality?[/QUOTE] The second impact hasn't occurred yet, so until that happens.

[QUOTE=Zyler;52501595]What is a quasiparticle in relation to a fundamental particle? Is it similar/related to a virtual particle?[/quote] Nope. Though virtual particles aren't real particles either. They're pretty much a mathematical convenience. [QUOTE=Zyler;52501595]So I'm guessing it isn't an actual new type of particle, but is instead one or more of a collection of the regular fundamental particles contained within a solid that behaves differently enough within very specific circumstances to be labeled as something else.[/QUOTE] Pretty much dead on. It's collective behavior of fundamental particle in some medium which acts kind of like its own particle. A phonon is basically a quantized unit of sound, for instance. A minimal vibration propagating in a lattice of particles.

I'm more inclined to believe [URL=https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-virtual-particles-rea/]that virtual particles are effectively real particles[/url]

[QUOTE=Quark:;52504130]I'm more inclined to believe [URL=https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-virtual-particles-rea/]that virtual particles are effectively real particles[/url][/QUOTE] That article is pretty bad. The key point is this: virtual particles only appear in perturbation theory. If you're investigating a quantum field theory via nonperturbative methods (e.g. lattice gauge theory), virtual particles never appear in the formulation at all. Hence, it doesn't make sense to call them real: they aren't even considered. These different types of theories compute the same physical things, and virtual particles only appear in one kind of the theories, hence virtual particles are not real. One point I can be charitable on is that, within perturbation theory, the distinction between "real" and "virtual" particle is fuzzy. We like to think that real particles are external lines in Feynman diagrams, that they've been travelling since the beginning of time to the center of the universe, where they meet some other particle and interact, and then the result of the reaction travels again away from the interaction site as real particles until the end of time. Of course, this never happens. All particles were born from some interaction and will die in some other interaction, so they're all at least "somewhat virtual." This is the point on which there can be sensible argument, and interpreting it is a bit of a challenge. Some of the points in that article are just dumb, however. Dumb enough that I'm surprised a string phenomenologist, who should have a very solid understanding of QFT, would make them. For instance: [quote]When the top quark mass was directly measured a few years later at the Tevatron collider at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory near Chicago, the value agreed with that obtained from the virtual particle analysis, providing a dramatic test of our understanding of virtual particles.[/quote] Yes. Perturbation theory works (sometimes). That's why we use it. Using virtual particles in calculations does not tell you whether they're "real" or not, and it obviously doesn't rule them out as being a mathematical convenience. Here's another issue: [quote]Another very good test some readers may want to look up, which we do not have space to describe here, is the Casimir effect, where forces between metal plates in empty space are modified by the presence of virtual particles.[/quote] But the virtual particle explanation is just one way to motivate the Casimir force. It can be described completely via relativistic Van der Waals forces. [url=https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0503158][B]Here is a whole article[/B][/url] about deriving the Casimir force without the usual "vacuum energy" explanation draped around it. (Slight point here: the article doesn't use the term "virtual particle" at all, instead talking about the "zero point energy." The missing bit to make it relevant is that the "zero point energy" is calculated by virtual particle processes beginning and ending with the vacuum.) [url=https://profmattstrassler.com/articles-and-posts/particle-physics-basics/virtual-particles-what-are-they/][B]Here[/B][/url] is an excellent article on the subject, and how I first started to come to grips with these ideas. Part of the problem is the terminology is very bad in places. Another problem is that there are almost as many ways to understand quantum field theory as there are people who understand it, so everyone gets a different picture of the subject. However, I think that objectively it doesn't make sense to say that something really exists if it only exists in one description of a theory which computes the same things as other descriptions. It is pretty clear that such a thing is merely a tool of that particular formalism.

[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;52504339]Complex stuff[/QUOTE] This is why I quit getting a degree in Physics.

Very interesting read Johnny, especially loved fig. 3 :v: thanks for the link

Man this name sucks. It's always the worst when researchers name something as a reference, all it does is bring their work attention as a piece of trivia mostly by people who will have no need or knowledge to understand it, all the while leaving it up to misinterpretation in the future.

[QUOTE=spiritlol;52524904]Man this name sucks. It's always the worst when researchers name something as a reference, all it does is bring their work attention as a piece of trivia mostly by people who will have no need or knowledge to understand it, all the while leaving it up to misinterpretation in the future.[/QUOTE] The obvious solution is to never use cool-sounding names for stuff.

[QUOTE=spiritlol;52524904]Man this name sucks. It's always the worst when researchers name something as a reference, all it does is bring their work attention as a piece of trivia mostly by people who will have no need or knowledge to understand it, all the while leaving it up to misinterpretation in the future.[/QUOTE] Reminds me of this bloody Jesus protein, it's not named like that but god damn. [media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSR8z_0uW5E[/media] I try to be tolerant but this shit boils my blood.

[QUOTE=spiritlol;52524904]Man this name sucks. It's always the worst when researchers name something as a reference, all it does is bring their work attention as a piece of trivia mostly by people who will have no need or knowledge to understand it, all the while leaving it up to misinterpretation in the future.[/QUOTE] Researchers need grant money to feed themselves, putting out outrageous names will put their work in highlights