{"id":170999,"date":"2023-08-31T17:23:03","date_gmt":"2023-08-31T22:23:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/08\/demon-hunting-strange-67-year-old-particle-physics-prediction-finally-confirmed"},"modified":"2023-08-31T17:23:03","modified_gmt":"2023-08-31T22:23:03","slug":"demon-hunting-strange-67-year-old-particle-physics-prediction-finally-confirmed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/08\/demon-hunting-strange-67-year-old-particle-physics-prediction-finally-confirmed","title":{"rendered":"Demon Hunting: Strange 67-Year-Old Particle Physics Prediction Finally Confirmed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/demon-hunting-strange-67-year-old-particle-physics-prediction-finally-confirmed.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>67 years after its theoretical prediction by David Pines, the elusive \u201cdemon\u201d particle, a massless and neutral entity in solids, has been detected in strontium ruthenate, underscoring the value of innovative research approaches.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In 1956, theoretical physicist David Pines predicted that electrons in a solid can do something strange. Although electrons typically have a mass and an electric charge, Pines asserted that they could combine to create a composite particle that is massless, neutral, and doesn\u2019t interact with light. He named this theoretical particle a \u201cdemon.\u201d Since then, it has been theorized to play an important role in the behaviors of a wide variety of metals. Unfortunately, the same properties that make it interesting have allowed it to elude detection since its prediction.<\/p>\n<p>Fast forward 67 years, and a research team led by Peter Abbamonte, a professor of physics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), has finally found Pines\u2019 elusive demon. As the researchers report in the journal <em>Nature<\/em>, they used a nonstandard experimental technique that directly excites a material\u2019s electronic modes, allowing them to see the demon\u2019s signature in the metal strontium ruthenate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>67 years after its theoretical prediction by David Pines, the elusive \u201cdemon\u201d particle, a massless and neutral entity in solids, has been detected in strontium ruthenate, underscoring the value of innovative research approaches. In 1956, theoretical physicist David Pines predicted that electrons in a solid can do something strange. Although electrons typically have a mass [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":511,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1635,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-170999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-materials","category-particle-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170999","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\/511"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170999\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}