{"id":139973,"date":"2022-05-30T11:23:23","date_gmt":"2022-05-30T16:23:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/05\/physicists-discover-strange-array-of-links-and-knots-in-quantum-matter"},"modified":"2022-05-30T11:23:23","modified_gmt":"2022-05-30T16:23:23","slug":"physicists-discover-strange-array-of-links-and-knots-in-quantum-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/05\/physicists-discover-strange-array-of-links-and-knots-in-quantum-matter","title":{"rendered":"Physicists Discover Strange Array of Links and Knots in Quantum Matter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/physicists-discover-strange-array-of-links-and-knots-in-quantum-matter2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>As physicists dig deeper into the quantum realm, they are discovering an infinitesimally small world composed of a strange and surprising array of links, knots, and winding. Some quantum materials exhibit magnetic whirls called <a href=https:\/\/scitechdaily.com\/tag\/skyrmions\/>skyrmions<\/a> \u2014 unique configurations sometimes described as \u201csubatomic hurricanes.\u201d Others host a form of superconductivity that twists into vortices.<\/p>\n<p>Now, in an article published in the journal <em>Nature, <\/em>a Princeton-led team of scientists has discovered that electrons in quantum matter can link one another in strange new ways. The work brings together ideas in three areas of science \u2013 condensed matter physics, topology, and knot theory \u2013 in a new way, raising unexpected questions about the quantum properties of electronic systems.<\/p>\n<p>Topology is the branch of theoretical mathematics that studies geometric properties that can be deformed but not intrinsically changed. Topological quantum states first came to the public\u2019s attention in 2016 when three scientists, including Duncan Haldane, who is Princeton\u2019s Thomas D. Jones Professor of Mathematical Physics and Sherman Fairchild University Professor of Physics, were awarded the <a href=https:\/\/www.nobelprize.org\/prizes\/physics\/2016\/press-release\/>Nobel Prize<\/a> for their theoretical prediction of topology in electronic materials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As physicists dig deeper into the quantum realm, they are discovering an infinitesimally small world composed of a strange and surprising array of links, knots, and winding. Some quantum materials exhibit magnetic whirls called skyrmions \u2014 unique configurations sometimes described as \u201csubatomic hurricanes.\u201d Others host a form of superconductivity that twists into vortices. Now, in [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":556,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[493,2229,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-139973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climatology","category-mathematics","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/556"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139973\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}