Right in time for spooky season, scientists have discovered the existence of something called the “demon” particle. While the name of the material may strike terror in some, its discovery is actually far less sinister. Hidden from researchers for over seven decades, the “composite” of electrons was recently discovered according to a new study published in Nature.
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“Demons have been theoretically conjectured for a long time, but experimentalists never studied them,” paper senior author Peter Abbamonte said in the study. “In fact, we weren’t even looking for it. But it turned out we were doing exactly the right thing, and we found it.”
What is the demon particle?
The demon particle isn’t a standard particle such as a proton or electron but rather, a composite of various electrons. A theory of the demon particle first circulated in the 1950s as a result of studies conducted by Dr. David Pines. While standard electrons have both a mass and a charge, Pines hypothesized a combination of electrons could potentially be massless and without a charge—and that’s exactly what Abbamonte’s team found.
“Pines’ prediction of demons necessitates rather specific conditions, and it was not clear to anyone whether strontium ruthenate should have a demon at all,” co-author Dr. Edwin Huang said. “We had to perform a microscopic calculation to clarify what was going on. When we did this, we found a particle consisting of two electron bands oscillating out-of-phase with nearly equal magnitude, just like Pines described.”
“At first, we had no idea what it was,” added first author Ali Husain. “Demons are not in the mainstream. The possibility came up early on, and we basically laughed it off. But, as we started ruling things out, we started to suspect that we had really found the demon.”
