Cool. Took its time though.
See:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0602103355.htm

'Quasiparticles'?!

My, my, modern particle physics is so full of subtleties and nuances it's starting to sound like English lit!

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"All your bias are belong to us." Ara Pacis
"A witty saying proves nothing." Voltaire

Strictly speaking, this is not actually particles physics. It is about many particles that interact with each other.

The concept of quasiparticles was developed by Landau to explain the properties of electrons in metals.
As a first approximation, these electrons can be described as gas of particles that do not interact with each other. But to take into account that they are inside a crystal lattice, which affects how they react to external fields, their mass has to be corrected. The result is that the particles used to describe the electric properties of metals are no longer simple electrons, but electron-like particles.

This is similar to the small oscillations in analytical mechanics: close to equilibrium a system can be described in term of a set of oscillators, which are not necessarily parts (or particles) of the system literally oscillating.

And, as a matter of fact, this is directly used in solid state physics. For example, the properties of the crytal lattice close to equilibrium are described in terms of quasiparticles called "phonons", which correspond to the oscillations of atoms. The long-range properties of the electrons in a metal are described in terms of "plasmons", which correspond to long-range oscillations of the charge density of the electrons.

There are many more example in condensed matter physics.

In the case of the OP, we have a gas of electrons confined to a plane and in a strong magnetic field. In this case, the quasiparticles used to describe the system correspond a a number of electrons "bound" to a number magnetic flux quanta. So, if we look at single flux quantum, we can have a fractional electron charge.

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papageno


"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" - Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)

"It's all about context!" - Vince Noir (The Mighty Boosh)

"I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about!" - Zapp Brannigan (Futurama)

So, any opinions on what should the headline have been? "Discovered" doesn't sound right. "Invented" might not be temporally correct, for the quasiparticles were imagined before now. Could it be that the quasiparticles have been "confirmed to be useful"? Hmm...

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0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 ...

So, how long before I can burn virtual rubber with this on my pc?
I do believe that someday quantum computers will be useful for scientific use at least, and maybe even someday for a PC, but it hasn't quite been the 'magic' some of the more bubblier and enthused make it out to be.

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I found the news in Nature about this:
So, the interesting part is not the fact that these are quasi-particles with fractional electronic charge, but that the expected statistics of their collective behaviour is exotic.

__________________
papageno


"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" - Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)

"It's all about context!" - Vince Noir (The Mighty Boosh)

"I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about!" - Zapp Brannigan (Futurama)

Ah-h-h-h-h-h! Finally the subcharge structure of the Higgs field begins to shine.

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For those inclined to oppose human meddling with the structure of the universe or the composition and configuration of objects and groups of objects within the universe, consider:
Whether there is a limit to the magnitude of a modulation of chaos below which order remains invariant? Or, is order but a fiction invented by perspectives applied over finite, however large, time intervals?

Now I remember hearing about "super chemistry"--where molecules could act as a discrete atom...could there be a spin off here too?