Image Credit:- courtesy of Heikka Valja
We all know that magnets always have two poles, South Pole and North Pole even if you cut it into pieces very single piece will have two poles. Paul Dirac in 1931 predicted “Magnetic monopoles”. In particle physics a magnetic monopole is a theoretical fundamental particle that is magnet with only one magnetic pole. It means these particles will have a north pole or a south pole, but not both. Magnetic monopoles have never been seen in nature, so far, but after 83 years of its prediction, physicists have now created artificial monopoles particles. This is a breakthrough in particle physics. According to the scientists' discovery of magnetic monopole particles in nature would be a radical progress in the field of physics similar to the detection of the electron. Creation of artificial magnetic monopole particles will help scientist in understanding their characteristics which can help them in finding natural magnetic monopole particles.
A team of researchers from Munich, Cologne and Dresden after hard work managed to produce non-natural magnetic monopoles. Researchers from Cologne, Dresden and Munich define the detection of a new type of artificial monopole particles in a solid, which have similar features to monopoles described by Paul Dirac in 1931, but they so far only exist within solid materials. This research of magnetic monopole particles was directed by David Hall of Amherst College. The results of this research were published in Nature.
David Hall and his colleagues implemented an advanced approach to explore Dirac’s theory and they were able to produce the artificial particles by disturbing rubidium atoms to a little less than 100-billionths of a degree warmer than the absolute zero. This temperature is the lowest quantum state possible. This temperature pushes atoms into a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). After this condensed rubidium acts contrarily than they generally would. A cloud formed after this condensation and performed like a wave and not a set of separate particles. This cloud formed after condensation of rubidium atoms is brought into a vortex to bring into line with all of the particles of the similar magnetic alignment. After this an atom of rubidium was placed in the middle of this vortex, which formed a hole in the center, completely annulled of atoms, generating the monopole atoms.
Monopole particles generated in this experiment were similar to the ones described by Paul Dirac in 1931. Researchers don’t know that monopolies magnetic particles exist in nature or not, but now they have an idea of what to look for. One exciting impression after this success includes trying to produce a monopole particle which is not bound to a vortex.
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