New particle in cuprate ceramics helps expain superconductivity

The more we learn, the stranger things get.
It turns out that an electron is not always just an electron...

from Physorg.com

New fundamental particles aren’t found only at Fermilab and at other particle accelerators. They also can be found hiding in plain pieces of ceramic, scientists at the University of Illinois report.

The newly formulated particle is a boson and has a charge of 2e, but does not consist of two electrons, the scientists say. The particle arises from the strong, repulsive interactions between electrons, and provides another piece of the high-temperature superconductivity puzzle.

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“When this 2e boson binds with a hole, the result is a new electronic state that has a charge of e,” Phillips said. “In this case, the electron is a combination of this new state and the standard, low-energy state. Electrons are not as simple as we thought.”

The new boson is an example of an emergent phenomenon – something that can’t be seen in any of the constituents, but is present as the constituents interact with one another.