Electrons on Crystal Display Linked to Quantum Twists Knots
As physicists dig deeper into the quantum space, they discover an infinitely smaller world surrounded by a strange and fantastic network of links, knots, and curves. Some quantum objects exhibit magnetic whirls called skyrmions – a unique configuration sometimes described as “subatomic storms.” Some hold a form of superconductivity that turns into vortices.
In an article published in the journal Nature, a team of scientists led by Princeton has discovered that quantum-based electrons can communicate in unique ways. The work integrates ideas into three areas of science – condensed matter physics, topology, and knot theory – in a new way, raising unexpected questions about the quantum structures of electronic systems.
Topology is a branch of mathematical theory that studies geometric structures that can be deformed but not internally altered. Topological quantum regions began to gain public attention in 2016 when three scientists, including Duncan Haldane, Princeton’s Professor Thomas D. Jones of Mathematical Physics, and Sherman Fairchild University’s Professor of Physics, were awarded the Nobel Prize for topology. Electrical items.
Since then, researchers have sought to expand this study area to build a deeper understanding of quantum mechanics, such as in the field of “quantum topology,” which aims to define the electron state by its so-called wave activity. This has been a factor in the current study, said M. Zahid Hasan, Professor Eugene Higgins of Physics at Princeton University and co-author of the study.
“We are studying structures related to the structure of electron wave activity,” Hasan said. “And now we’ve put it on a new frontier.”
