Materials containing the axial Higgs mode can act as quantum sensors to evaluate other quantum systems and help answer outstanding questions in particle physics.
according to Standard Model of Particle Physics, scientists’ current best theory for describing the building blocks of the universe, particles called quarks (which make up protons and neutrons) and leptons (which include electrons) make up all known matter. Force-carrying particles, which belong to a larger group of bosons, affect quarks and leptons.
Although the Standard Model is successful in explaining the universe, it has its limitations. Dark matter and dark energy are two examples, and it’s possible that new, as yet undiscovered particles, will eventually solve these mysteries.
Today, an interdisciplinary team led by physicists from Boston College announced that they have discovered a new particle – or previously undetectable quantum excitation – known as the axial Higgs mode, a magnetic relative of the boson particle. Higgs that define mass. The team published their report today (8 June 2022) in the online version of the magazine nature.
The much-anticipated discovery of the Higgs boson ten years ago became essential to understanding mass. Unlike its relativity, the axial Higgs mode has a magnetic moment, and this requires a more complex form of theory to explain its properties, said Boston College physics professor Kenneth Burch, co-lead author of “the axial Higgs mode discovered by quantum path interference at RTe.”3. “
Theories that predicted the existence of such a situation have been invoked to explain”black matter“The nearly invisible matter that makes up a large part of the universe, but only reveals itself through gravity,” Burch said.
The Higgs boson is the fundamental particle associated with the Higgs field, a field that gives mass to other fundamental particles such as electrons and quarks. The mass of a particle determines how much it resists a change in velocity or position when it experiences a force.
While that Buzon Higgs Revealed through experiments at the Large Particle Collider, the team focused on RTe3or rare earth tritelluride, a well-studied quantum substance that can be investigated at room temperature in an experimental “benchtop” format.
“It’s not every day that you find a new particle on your table,” Burch said.
RTE3 It has properties that mimic the theory that produces the axial Higgs position, Burch said. But the central challenge in the search for Higgs particles in general is their poor coupling with experimental probes, such as light beams, he said. Likewise, revealing the precise quantum properties of particles typically requires very complex experimental setups, including massive magnets and high-powered lasers, while cooling samples to extremely cold temperatures.
The team reported that they overcame these challenges through the unique use of light scattering and the appropriate selection of a quantum simulator, which is essentially a material that mimics desired properties for the study.
Specifically, the researchers focused on a compound long known to possess a “charge density wave,” a state in which electrons self-organize with a periodic density in space, Burch said.
He added that the basic theory of this wave simulates the components of the Standard Model of particle physics. However, in this case, the charge density wave is quite peculiar, it appears much above room temperature and involves a modification of the charge density and atomic orbitals. This allows the Higgs boson associated with this charge density wave to have additional components, that is, it can be axial, which means that it has angular momentum.
In order to reveal the exact nature of this mode, Borsch explained that the team used light scattering, in which a laser is directed at the material and can change color as well as polarization. The color change is caused by the light creating the Higgs boson in the material, while the polarization is sensitive to the symmetry components of the particle.
Moreover, with the right choice of forward and outer polarization, the particle can be generated with different components – such as absent magnetism or an upward signaling component. Taking advantage of a fundamental aspect of quantum mechanics, they use the fact that these components cancel out each other to create. However, for a different composition, they add.
“So we were able to reveal the hidden magnetic component and prove the discovery of the first axial Higgs mode,” Borsch said.
“The pivotal Higgs discovery in high-energy particle physics has been predicted to explain dark matter,” Burch said. “However, this was never noticed. Its appearance in a condensed matter system is quite surprising and announces the discovery of a new state of disrupted symmetry that had not been predicted. In contrast to the harsh conditions generally required to observe new particles, this was done at room temperature in a tabletop experiment where we obtain quantum mode control simply by changing the polarization of light.
Burch said the simple, seemingly accessible experimental methods the team has published might be applied to study in other fields.
“A lot of these experiments were done by an undergraduate in my lab,” Burch said. This approach can be directly applied to the quantum properties of many collective phenomena, including patterns in superconductors, magnets, ferroelectrics, and charge density waves. Moreover, we bring the study of quantitative interferences in phase bound and/or topological materials to room temperature by overcoming the difficulty of harsh experimental conditions.
In addition to Birch, co-authors of the Boston College report included undergraduate Grant McNamara, recent doctoral student Yiping Wang, and postdoctoral researcher Md Mofazzel Hosen. Burch said Wang won the American Physical Society’s top dissertation on magnetism, in part for her work on the project.
It is critical to draw on a wide range of expertise among researchers from British Columbia, Harvard University, Burch said.[{”attribute=””>PrincetonUniversitytheUniversityofMassachusettsAmherst<spanclass="glossaryLink"aria-describedby="tt"data-cmtooltip="
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“This shows the power of interdisciplinary efforts in revealing and controlling new phenomena,” Burch said. “It’s not every day you get optics, chemistry, physical theory, materials science and physics together in one work.”
Reference: “Axial Higgs mode detected by quantum pathway interference in RTe3” by Yiping Wang, Ioannis Petrides, Grant McNamara, Md Mofazzel Hosen, Shiming Lei, Yueh-Chun Wu, James L. Hart, Hongyan Lv, Jun Yan, Di Xiao, Judy J. Cha, Prineha Narang, Leslie M. Schoop and Kenneth S. Burch, 8 June 2022, Nature.
DOI: 10.1038 / s41586-022-04746-6
Funding: U.S. Department of Energy
