Good article, thanks Mouse! There is a lot that we don't really know or
understand about these subatomic particles and the quantum world we have
"evoked" to help us make sense of them!
https://scitechdaily.com/newly-discovered-type-of-strange-metal-material-that-shares-fundamental-quantum-attributes-with-black-holes/
Newly Discovered Type of “Strange Metal” – Material That Shares Fundamental
Quantum Attributes With Black Holes
TOPICS:Brown UniversityMaterials ScienceMetalSuperconductivity
By BROWN UNIVERSITY JANUARY 16, 2022
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 University physicist has added a new
discovery to the strange metal mix. In research published in the journal
Nature, the team found strange metal behavior in a material in which electrical
charge is carried not by electrons, but by more “wave-like” entities called
Cooper pairs.
While electrons belong to a class of particles called fermions, Cooper pairs
act as bosons, which follow very different rules from fermions. This is the
first time strange metal behavior has been seen in a bosonic system, and
researchers are hopeful that the discovery might be helpful in finding an
explanation for how strange metals work — something that has eluded scientists
for decades.
Using a material called yttrium barium copper oxide arrayed with tiny holes,
researchers have discovered “strange metal” behavior in a type of system where
charge carriers are bosons, something that’s never been seen before. Credit:
Brown University
“We have these two fundamentally different types of particles whose behaviors
converge around a mystery,” said Jim Valles, a professor of physics at Brown
and the study’s corresponding author. “What this says is that any theory to
explain strange metal behavior can’t be specific to either type of particle. It
needs to be more fundamental than that.”
Strange metals
Strange metal behavior was first discovered around 30 years ago in a class of
materials called cuprates. These copper-oxide materials are most famous for
being high-temperature superconductors, meaning they conduct electricity with
zero resistance at temperatures far above that of normal superconductors. But
even at temperatures above the critical temperature for superconductivity,
cuprates act strangely compared to other metals.
As their temperature increases, cuprates’ resistance increases in a strictly
linear fashion. In normal metals, the resistance increases only so far,
becoming constant at high temperatures in accord with what’s known as Fermi
liquid theory. Resistance arises when electrons flowing in a metal bang into
the metal’s vibrating atomic structure, causing them to scatter. Fermi-liquid
theory sets a maximum rate at which electron scattering can occur. But strange
metals don’t follow the Fermi-liquid rules, and no one is sure how they work.
What scientists do know is that the temperature-resistance relationship in
strange metals appears to be related to two fundamental constants of nature:
Boltzmann’s constant, which represents the energy produced by random thermal
motion, and Planck’s constant, which relates to the energy of a photon (a
particle of light).
“To try to understand what’s happening in these strange metals, people have
applied mathematical approaches similar to those used to understand black
holes,” Valles said. “So there’s some very fundamental physics happening in
these materials.”
Of bosons and fermions
In recent years, Valles and his colleagues have been studying electrical
activity in which the charge carriers are not electrons. In 1952, Nobel
Laureate Leon Cooper, now a Brown professor emeritus of physics, discovered
that in normal superconductors (not the high-temperature kind discovered
later), electrons team up to form Cooper pairs, which can glide through an
atomic lattice with no resistance. Despite being formed by two electrons, which
are fermions, Cooper pairs can act as bosons.
“Fermion and boson systems usually behave very differently,” Valles said.
“Unlike individual fermions, bosons are allowed to share the same quantum
state, which means they can move collectively like water molecules in the
ripples of a wave.”
In 2019, Valles and his colleagues showed that Cooper pair bosons can produce
metallic behavior, meaning they can conduct electricity with some amount of
resistance. That in itself was a surprising finding, the researchers say,
because elements of quantum theory suggested that the phenomenon shouldn’t be
possible. For this latest research, the team wanted to see if bosonic
Cooper-pair metals were also strange metals.
The team used a cuprate material called yttrium barium copper oxide patterned
with tiny holes that induce the Cooper-pair metallic state. The team cooled the
material down to just above its superconducting temperature to observe changes
in its conductance. They found, like fermionic strange metals, a Cooper-pair
metal conductance that is linear with temperature.
The researchers say this new discovery will give theorists something new to
chew on as they try to understand strange metal behavior.
“It’s been a challenge for theoreticians to come up with an explanation for
what we see in strange metals,” Valles said. “Our work shows that if you’re
going to model charge transport in strange metals, that model must apply to
both fermions and bosons — even though these types of particles follow
fundamentally different rules.”
Ultimately, a theory of strange metals could have massive implications. Strange
metal behavior could hold the key to understanding high-temperature
superconductivity, which has vast potential for things like lossless power
grids and quantum computers. And because strange metal behavior seems to be
related to fundamental constants of the universe, understanding their behavior
could shed light on basic truths of how the physical world works.
Reference: “Signatures of a strange metal in a bosonic system” by Chao Yang,
Haiwen Liu, Yi Liu, Jiandong Wang, Dong Qiu, Sishuang Wang, Yang Wang, Qianmei
He, Xiuli Li, Peng Li, Yue Tang, Jian Wang, X. C. Xie, James M. Valles Jr, Jie
Xiong and Yanrong Li, 12 January 2022, Nature.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-04239-y
A true lover of wisdom has hands too busy to hold on to anything! He learns by
doing and every pebble in the path becomes her teacher! Oink
On Tuesday, January 18, 2022, 08:48:32 AM EST, Mouse > wrote:
Thanks. I have a friend who lives under the transmission lines. He can hold a
(electronic timer we use for timing exposures in the darkroom) metronome's
prongs in his two fingers and it will start ticking. People have been
prosecuting for putting a wire loop on the ground under the lines to pilfer
power. So, yeah.
In a related subject you might enjoy this:
https://scitechdaily.com/newly-discovered-type-of-strange-metal-material-that-shares-fundamental-quantum-attributes-with-black-holes/
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Newly Discovered Type of “Strange Metal” – Material That Shares Fundamen...
A new discovery could help scientists to understand “strange metals,” a class
of materials that are related to h...
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On Sun, Jan 16, 2022 at 7:21 PM Domingo Pichardo <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
I think some of you might find this video interesting...
The Big Misconception About Electricity
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The Big Misconception About Electricity
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A true lover of wisdom has hands too busy to hold on to anything! He learns by
doing and every pebble in the path becomes her teacher! Oink
--
<:3 )~
