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A new discovery could help scientists to understand “strange metals,” a class of materials that are related to high-temperature superconductors and share fundamental quantum attributes with black holes. Scientists understand quite well how temperature affects electrical conductance in most everyday metals like copper or silver. But in recent years, researchers have turned their attention to a class of materials that do not seem to follow the traditional electrical rules. Understanding these so-called “strange metals” could provide fundamental insights into the quantum world, and potentially help scientists understand strange phenomena like high-temperature superconductivity. Now, a research team co-led by a Brown...

A small team of researchers at Purdue University has found the strongest evidence yet of the existence of abelian anyons. They have written a paper describing experiments they conducted designed to reveal the existence of the quasiparticles and have uploaded it to the arXiv preprint server while they await peer review. Anyons are neither bosons nor fermions—in fact, they are not elementary particles at all. Instead, they are classified as quasiparticles that exist in two dimensions. They can be observed, theoretically speaking, when they appear as disturbances in two-dimensional sheets of materials. Theoretical physicists have suggested their existence since the...

May 8 (UPI) -- The study of a unique crystalline material, composed of aluminum and platinum atoms, has revealed a pair of electronic properties that have never been seen before. The atoms in the new materials are crystallized in a special pattern, with each row offset from the other. The pattern creates a spiral staircase of aluminum and platinum atoms. According to the new study, published this week in the journal Nature Physics, the material's unique crystalline structure produces Rarita-Schwinger fermions in its interior and extremely long quadruple topological Fermi arcs on its surface. Rarita-Schwinger fermions are a type of...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 February 19 Pauli Exclusion Principle: Why You Don't Implode Credit & Copyright: Andrew Truscott & Randall Hulet (Rice U.) Explanation: Why doesn't matter just bunch up? The same principle that keeps neutron stars and white dwarf stars from imploding also keeps people from imploding and makes normal matter mostly empty space. The observed reason is known as the Pauli Exclusion Principle. The principle states that identical fermions...