The renowned physicist Richard Feynman is reputed to have once said that “physics is to math what sex is to masturbation”. Exactly what comparison he was making, he didn’t clarify – but if the orgasm gap is anything to go by, he presumably meant that math is often more fun, more effective, and better at getting the desired result in the face of adverse real-world conditions.
For example: physics traditionally tells us that all particles can be classified into one of two types, either bosons or fermions, depending on their properties and behavior. But math says that’s not the whole story – at least, according to a new study.
“We determined that new types of particles we never knew of before are possible,” said Kaden Hazzard, associate professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University and co-author of the new paper, in a statement on the findings.
It’s actually not the first time the existence of such “parastatistical particles”, or “paraparticles” as they’re known for short, has been suggested. Indeed, “parastatistics, and their apparent absence in nature, has been discussed since the dawn of quantum mechanics,” notes the paper.
“The first concrete theory of parastatistics was proposed and investigated by Green in 1953,” the authors write. “This theory was subsequently studied in detail and also more generally and rigorously within the framework of algebraic quantum field theory.”
Unfortunately, though, the idea turned out to be something of a lame duck. It wasn’t that the paraparticles didn’t or couldn’t exist – that was fine – rather, the problem was that it didn’t matter whether they did or not.
“These works did not rule out the existence of paraparticles in nature,” explains the paper, “but led to the conclusion that, under certain assumptions, any theory of paraparticles […] is physically indistinguishable from theories of ordinary fermions and bosons. This seemingly obviated the need to consider paraparticle theories, as they give exactly the same physical predictions as theories of ordinary particles.”
So much for the paraparticles idea – or so it seemed. But when Hazzard and then-grad student Zhiyuan Wang considered the problem through a mathematical lens, they not only found that nontrivial paraparticles could exist, but they also figured out where they might turn up in nature – such as within magnetic flux.
“Particles aren’t just these fundamental things,” said Hazzard. “They’re also important in describing materials.”
As you might expect, these paraparticles would be weird – even considering the general oddness of quantum physics. “Their exchange statistics can be physically observed and are notably distinct from fermions and bosons,” notes the paper.
Like the equally baffling new quasiparticles, the discovery of which was also announced this week, the result “demonstrates the possibility of a new type of quasiparticle in condensed matter systems,” the authors write, “and – more speculatively – the potential for previously unconsidered types of elementary particle.”
It’s exciting, but it’s only a first step. Where this theory leads, or even possible routes to get there, are still to be determined – as of yet, we don’t even know the questions, let alone the answers.
“This is cross-disciplinary research that involves several areas of theoretical physics and mathematics,” said Wang, now a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Germany. But “to realize paraparticles in experiments, we need more realistic theoretical proposals,” he added.
Wherever the theory takes them, though, the journey should be worth watching.
“I don’t know where it will go,” Hazzard said. “But I know it will be exciting to find out.”
The paper is published in the journal Nature.
Source Link: Physics Said These Quantum Particles Couldn't Exist. Now, Math Has Proven They Can
