Tigran Sedrakyan, an associate professor of physics at the University of Massachusetts, and his colleagues recently reported their discovery of a new phase of matter in the journal Nature. The finding, known as the “chiral bose-liquid state,” provides a fresh avenue in the long-standing quest to comprehend the nature of the physical universe.
In normal circumstances, matter can take the form of a solid, liquid, or gas. However, the world takes on a totally different appearance if you step outside of the ordinary—towards temperatures close to absolute zero, objects less than a fraction of an atom, or entities with really low energy levels. According to Sedrakyan, “You encounter quantum states of matter far away on these fringes,” and they are considerably more extreme than the three classical states we often experience.
Sedrakyan has spent years studying these bizarre quantum states, and he is especially intrigued by the idea that strongly behaving quantum matter can exhibit what physicists refer to as “band degeneracy,” “moat bands,” or “kinetic frustration.”
In normal circumstances, matter can take the form of a solid, liquid, or gas. However, the world takes on a totally different appearance if you step outside of the ordinary—towards temperatures close to absolute zero, objects less than a fraction of an atom, or entities with really low energy levels. According to Sedrakyan, “You encounter quantum states of matter far away on these fringes,” and they are considerably more extreme than the three classical states we often experience.
Sedrakyan has spent years studying these bizarre quantum states, and he is especially intrigued by the idea that strongly behaving quantum matter can exhibit what physicists refer to as “band degeneracy,” “moat bands,” or “kinetic frustration.”
In normal circumstances, matter can take the form of a solid, liquid, or gas. However, the world takes on a totally different appearance if you step outside of the ordinary—towards temperatures close to absolute zero, objects less than a fraction of an atom, or entities with really low energy levels. According to Sedrakyan, “You encounter quantum states of matter far away on these fringes,” and they are considerably more extreme than the three classical states we often experience.
Sedrakyan has spent years studying these bizarre quantum states, and he is especially intrigued by the idea that strongly behaving quantum matter can exhibit what physicists refer to as “band degeneracy,” “moat bands,” or “kinetic frustration.”
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What transpires when an outside particle does collide with one of the particles in the chiral edge state is even more unexpected. In keeping with the billiard ball analogy, you would anticipate the cue ball striking the eight-ball to send it flying. However, if the 15 pool balls were in a chiral bose-liquid condition, they would all respond to the striking of the eight-ball in an identical manner. The long-range entanglement that exists in this quantum system is what causes this phenomenon.
The chiral bose-liquid state has been hidden for so long because it is difficult to see. To do this, a group of scientists led by experimental physicist Rui-Rui Du of Peking University and theoretical physicists Rui Wang and Baigeng Wang of Nanjing University developed a theory and an experiment that made use of an extremely potent magnetic field that could be used to measure the movements of electrons as they competed for seats.
“On the outermost portion of the semiconductor bilayer, electrons and holes migrate with the same velocities,” claims Lingjie Du. As the electron and hole channels eventually divide under higher fields, this results in helical-like transport that may be further manipulated by external magnetic fields. As a result, the magneto-transport experiments successfully present the first proof of the chiral bose-liquid, also known as the “excitonic topological order” by the authors of the publication.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Programme for Innovative Talents and Entrepreneurs in Jiangsu, the Xiaomi Foundation, and the National Science Foundation all provided funding for this research.
