from Hacker News

Researchers see signature of “Majorana particles” inside superconducting iron

by 4k on 10/3/14, 11:05 AM with 52 comments

  • by chton on 10/3/14, 11:55 AM

    It's an interesting result for solid-state physicists, but the title is very confusing to the layman. The finding is about quasi particles that have the same properties as a Majorana fermion (a Majorana bound state), due to how electrons behave in a superconductor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majorana_fermion#Majorana_boun...). They did not detect a Majorana fermion itself. This is satisfactorily explained in the article, but the title is sensationalist.

  • by al2o3cr on 10/3/14, 12:20 PM

    (facepalm) Another day, another "popularized" article that confuses condensed-matter quasiparticles with real particles...

  • by kartikkumar on 10/3/14, 1:59 PM

    Here's the press announcement in 2012 of the preceeding work done in Delft: http://www.tudelft.nl/en/current/latest-news/article/detail/.... And here's a link to the related paper on ArXiV: http://arxiv.org/abs/1204.2792.

    I know a few of the people working on the experimental setup within the Kavli Institute. Insanely complex setup! As an aerospace engineer, most of it goes well over my head, but it's interesting nonetheless!

  • by lnanek2 on 10/3/14, 3:45 PM

    > As opposed to particles found in a vacuum, unattached to other matter, these Majoranas are what’s called “emergent particles.” They emerge from the collective properties of the surrounding matter and could not exist outside the superconductor

    Sounds a lot like some of the magnetic monopole announcements. It is always more of a situation than an actual thing.

  • by calhoun137 on 10/4/14, 3:20 PM

    This article does demonstrate the principle that virtually every area of active research in material science, no matter how obscure, will one day have a Very Important Application in Quantum Computers. sigh

  • by fennecfoxen on 10/3/14, 11:54 AM

    Both matter and antimatter? You mean like the photon and, iirc, all the other neutrally charged elementary particles?

    New quasi-particle is Majorana. :b

  • by __abc on 10/3/14, 6:13 PM

    Is this a marijuana joke?