Alice Rings

Topological monopoles are a quantum physics phenomenon that can decay into what’s known as “Alice rings.”

Named after Lewis Carroll’s famous heroine, this vortex ring flips the magnetic charge of any monopole that passes through it, creating an anti-monopole.

Although these rings last only 80 or so milliseconds, they could have big implications in the study of cosmology and high-energy physics.

The literary works of Lewis Carroll and the complex machinations of quantum physics rarely cross paths—but when they do, it’s about as mind-bending as it sounds.

Last month, scientists from Aalto University in Finland and Amherst College in Massachusetts created a bizarre quantum object known as an ‘Alice ring.’ An homage to Carroll’s titular character in Alice in Wonderland, the name is an apt one. 

This decayed monopole—a particle with only one magnetic pole—opens a “vortex ring” that flips the magnetic charge of any other monopole passing through its center, creating an “anti-monopole.” The results of the study were published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.     READ MORE...

ALICE RINGS - Loops in the Fabric of Reality

Strange loops in the fabric of reality have finally been witnessed forming in a super cold gas, providing physicists with an opportunity to study the behaviors of a rather peculiar kind of one-sided magnetism.

Known as 'Alice rings' after the Alice of 'Wonderland' fame, the circular structures were observed by a collaboration between researchers in the US and Finland which already has a long list of discoveries concerning the distortions in quantum fields known as topological monopoles.

The isolated equivalent of a pole on a magnet, monopoles truly sound like something Alice would have seen in her hunt for the white rabbit. Cutting a magnet in half won't succeed in separating its north from south, but monopoles can theoretically arise in the quantum machinery that gives rise to various forces and particles.

One version of the monopole takes the form of an elementary particle, one that has defied all attempts to identify so remains, for now, purely hypothetical.

Yet monopoles can emerge in other settings. The frothing of various quantum fields can give rise to their own style of one-sided magnetism as they swirl, pulling and tugging on their surrounds to give birth to short-lived anomalies that stand out for a split moment before vanishing into the churn once more.

As a member of the Monopole Collaboration from Aalto University in Finland, physicist Mikko Möttönen is intimately familiar with a whole variety of whirlpools, strings, and tangles that can emerge in the weave of a quantum fabric.  READ MORE...