Quasiparticles, flat bands and the melting of hydrodynamic matter

Quasiparticles occur in classical systems

31 July 2023

Particle-like entities known as quasiparticles, which so far have only be used to describe quantum phenomena, have been shown to applicable to classical systems too.

First introduced in 1941, the concept of quasiparticles — excitations that behave like particles — has been highly successful in explaining a wide range of quantum phenomena, including superconductivity and superfluidity. They were believed to belong exclusively to the domain of quantum systems since collision rates in classical systems are too high to allow quasiparticles to exist for very long.

Now, three researchers from the Institute for Basic Science in South Korea have shown that particles that pair up in a classical system of microparticles flowing in a 2D channel can be viewed as quasiparticles.

In particular, they showed that melting of the system can be explained using these quasiparticles.

This demonstration opens up the possibility that quasiparticles could be useful for describing other classical systems.

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References

1. Nature Physics 19, 536–544 (2023). doi: 10.1038/s41567-022-01893-5