Comment by westurner
2 years ago
Are there intermediate [electron,] charge states between + and - in superfluids and/or superconductors?
Is there superposition with electron charge states?
2 years ago
Are there intermediate [electron,] charge states between + and - in superfluids and/or superconductors?
Is there superposition with electron charge states?
The typical model of superconductivity says that electrons in the material pair up to form a quasiparticle -- the "cooper pair" -- with new properties, namely not experiencing resistance. The original quantized charge of the electrons still adds up to the same amount.
Unlike protons an neutrons, electrons are considered elementary particles that can't be broken down any further, so their charge can not be "divided" into something less than 1.
Quantum Hall effect: https://www.quantamagazine.org/inside-the-proton-the-most-co... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39374020 :
> Despite this difference in complexity, an electron has a charge of -e and a proton has a charge of +e. They are exactly complementary regarding charge (if I am understanding right, I am not a smart person).
> my question is... why? why must protons and electrons be perfectly complementary regarding charge? if the proton is this insanely complex thing, by what rule does it end up equaling exactly the opposite charge of an electron? why not a charge of +1.8e, or +3e, or 0.1666e, etc? Certainly it is convenient that a proton and electron complement each other, but what makes that the case?
"Electrons become fractions of themselves in graphene, study finds" https://phys.org/news/2024-02-electrons-fractions-graphene.a... :
"Fractional quantum anomalous Hall effect in multilayer graphene" (2024) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-07010-7