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...
