New particle called quantum droplet discovered

[n2doc]

In the field of quantum physics, you could call this a droplet in the bucket.

Physicists in Germany and the United States said on Wednesday they have discovered an exotic new type of particle that they call a quantum droplet, or dropleton.

Writing in the journal Nature, they said it behaves a bit like a liquid droplet and described it as a quasiparticle — an amalgamation of smaller types of particles.

The discovery, they added, could be useful in the development of nanotechnology, including the design of optoelectronic devices. These include things like the semiconductor lasers used in Blu-ray disc players.

more
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/new-particle-called-quantum-droplet-discovered-1.2553585

[Beachwood]

1. Fascinating, but way beyond my schooling in atoms

I'm sorry, but I need more than one article to convince me that this is not just other way of thinking about stuff we already "knew" about on an atomic level.

Atoms, all a set of rules that apply to three sub-pieces: protons, neutrons, electrons, all three parts of any atom is governed by laws of physics to exist in certain relationships to each other, spacially, electromagneticaly, able to interact with each other and with atoms of different elements to make up molecules, to exchange or share electrons only.

I have to admit, I got off the physics and chemistry learning bus when it got just short of the "quantum physics" station. I really had a hard time absorbing the existence of the transient nature of existence that quantum physics describes. So call me an old dumb undereducated duffus.

I must admit, too old a guy to go much further than that in my high school and basic college chemistry and physics understanding of atoms and molecules. I accept those "theories" as scientific facts, but this new dimension,(theory?), I'm having a hard time getting my head around.

This 25 trillionths of a second, could that be a time when the devices observing something just failed to function? Like when I turn on my web cam, it doesn't work for a second or two while the software and hardware meet up and shake hands. Just theorizing here, did we find a "something", or did we have a misfire of our imprecise equipment?

[caraher]

2. "particles" in condensed matter systems can have strange properties

It's first worth knowing that what we think of as "particles" in the everyday sense aren't really the same as what counts as "particles" in contemporary physics (the term tends to be applied to quanta of any field; yes, I know I'm just introducing a different word ("quanta&quot here without a real explanation of what I mean!). So for instance, while we might agree that ordinary matter is made of neutrons, protons and electrons, there are excitations in solids that it is appropriate, in many ways, to treat on par with those particles, and we ascribe to things like "phonons" properties that parallel those of electrons, neutrons and protons.

As for the 25 trillionths of a second (25 picoseconds), that's actually an eternity compared to the precision limits of these sorts of experiments. I didn't read the full article but I'm familiar with some of the researchers and did similar work in graduate school. The chief tool of the trade is a laser that emits pulses with durations typically measured in femtoseconds, which are thousandths of trillionths of a second, and the techniques for observing the evolution of systems interacting on such timescales are extremely well-developed. One typical approach to measuring such fast dynamics is to split one pulse (and possibly amplify one or both) and send them to a sample along slightly different paths such that there is a well-known time delay between their arrival times. (This is easy because light is fast, moving one foot per nanosecond. So if you can move a mirror to a precision of a thousandth of an inch - which is very easy - you have control over arrival times good to maybe 1/30 of a picosecond.)

So what you do is hit the system with the first pulse and then its time-delayed clone, and see how the system reacts. The first pulse evidently creates the "droplet" (yes, from the ordinary stuff of matter as you understand it). While the droplet state persists, its interaction with the second pulse has a certain signature. What they see as they vary the time between pulses is that when the delay exceeds 25 picoseconds or so, the interaction with the second pulse changes in a way that they interpret as the decay of the "droplet."

[DhhD]

3. Reminds me of a single unit/cell that has a head and a tail with the head arriving

ahead of the tail at different times as it metastasizes toward a new end only to pick up and move again in phase. Could the cell/cells be moving toward a fractal alignment while in/on the droplet, landing when the droplet disappears?