Excitonium!

[Nikolai]

No, it's not the stuff generated by hype while waiting for another version of KSP to drop.    Apparently, scientists have just discovered a form of matter that was only hypothetical for fifty years.

From what I've been able to gather, here's the basic idea:

When electrons leave valence shells, they leave "holes". The "holes" are considered to be positively charged(*). "Holes" and electrons even attract each other; they act exactly as if they're positively charged particles.

Excitonium is matter made up purely of electrons and "holes", held together by their mutual charge. There are no atomic nuclei. An "exciton" is an atom without a nucleus; excitonium is made up of excitons.

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(*) Just ask an electrical engineer. "Holes" are considered to be the charge carriers in semiconductors, which are electronic components of everything from diodes to transistors to microchips. The math works out the same as it would if we tracked electrons instead (the "real" charge carriers in circuits); the only difference is a change in sign.

 

Edited January 19, 2018 by Nikolai
Cleared up some formatting

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

If there are hyperons, somewhere should be excitonium.

Next stop: holerium, a matter consisting of pure holes.
Noatoms made of noprotons, noneutrons and holes.

Next stop: they will discover a hole's antiparticle, antihole.
Hole and antihole will annihilate, emitting a pair of photon and no photon.

Next stop: they will realize, that the Dark Matter s made of holes, that's why we can't see it.

 

[magnemoe]

1 minute ago, kerbiloid said:

  Hide contents

If there are hyperons, somewhere should be excitonium.

Next stop: holerium, a matter consisting of pure holes.
Noatoms made of noprotons, noneutrons and holes.

Next stop: they will discover a hole's antiparticle, antihole.
Hole and antihole will annihilate, emitting a pair of photon and no photon.

Next stop: they will realize, that the Dark Matter s made of holes, that's why we can't see it.

 

This makes perfect sense compared with the video.
Holes them self make sense, but only together with atoms who are lacking electrons. 
Holes without atoms start getting into accounting for politicians, something who is far less real than unicorns, unicorns are pretty plausible after all, lots of horse like animal with horns but two not one. 
You might have to do an sanity roll past this point.

[cubinator]

Great job, scientists!

[radonek]

1 hour ago, Nikolai said:

Excitonium is matter made up purely of electrons and "holes", held together by their mutual charge. There are no atomic nuclei.

So where does the positive charge come from?

[Steel]

Anyone got any citations for some actual scientific literature on the matter?

[ment18]

15 minutes ago, Steel said:

Anyone got any citations for some actual scientific literature on the matter?

Heres something that looks legit

https://physics.illinois.edu/news/article/24114

Its far beyond me.

Edited January 19, 2018 by ment18

[PB666]

2 minutes ago, radonek said:

So where does the positive charge come from?

Its doesn't, consider that the ground state of an atom, in which the ground state is not a zero energy state, if you remove an electron from the zero energy state and place it in a higher state, the electron density disappears from the orbital, and in fact the orbital warps (particularly if is a molecular orbital) there is a tensor. Charge has moved further away and the process in which it returns is not immediately perfect.  When you return the electron the other orbitals return to their original manifold but not immediately. If you think about a large atoms with molecular orbitals there has to be some negotiation going on, because as the electron was kicked, bonds shifted.

If you want to consider a completely relaxed state consider this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose–Einstein_condensate.

I'm point this page because superfluidity implies that the electrons of liquid helium lack 'sharp elbows' meaning they do not applied torque to other helium atoms as they pass. Consider the two electrons in the B-E cond. as a completely happy couple, they are not perfectly happy (uncertainty does not allow this) but their properties have achieve maximum parsimony.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angular_momentum_coupling#Angular_momentum_conservation

So that anything that alters the electrons properties in the excited state or the unpaired state _can_ (but not necessarily does) when the electron is returned to the lower energy state. This can be trivial or significant, as might be the case where other electrons in the 'shell' are also in molecular orbitals and the reaction to excitation energy spreads in the system.

 

[YNM]

What's the difference between this and :

- Electrons in a conductor ?

- Electrons in semiconductors ?

- A very large atomic shell ?

[radonek]

1 hour ago, PB666 said:

Its doesn't, consider that the ground state of an atom…

Yes, but OP makes it sound like there is no atom involved. Which makes me think that either there are no real holes (no positive charge) or that there is atomic nucleus somewhere around. .

[PB666]

The video is kind of, well, not good.

[YNM]

10 minutes ago, PB666 said:

The video is kind of, well, not good.

Standard of slightly hype-ish "news" site.

Anyway, still, could anyone tell whether this is like an explanation for some phenomenon, a new "state", or an entirely new material/element (very questionable, though) ?

Edited January 20, 2018 by YNM

[PB666]

32 minutes ago, YNM said:

What's the difference between this and :

- Electrons in a conductor ?

- Electrons in semiconductors ?

- A very large atomic shell ?

That's a good question, I supposed a semi-condutor is a forced state where as this in more of a coerced state. More on the order that you rattle a lions cage to get the lion to swipe wildly, and while he is swiping noone dares venture close to the cage, the system remembers for sometime the swipey lion and acts as if the space is still perturbed. That would be different from opening the cage and having a lion on a tether. The question they raise is interesting, how long is enough time (they are only at 26K) for a system to relax once it is perturbed and coerced back to that original state. Remember that at the quantum scale its no longer about energy (but it should be conserved), its about information, so it in the conversion some tangential information is generated (dimensionality on the quantum scale is really tricky) in the first process, when the process is reversed, what happens to the tangential information that was generated.

1 minute ago, YNM said:

Standard of slightly hype-ish "news" site.

That would be a compliment in this case.

[Scotius]

11 hours ago, radonek said:

So where does the positive charge come from?

From the lack of negativity of course

Like in this old science joke:

Two atoms cross the bridge.

One suddenly yells: "Oh! I lost an electron!"

"Are you sure?" Asks the second atom.

"Yes, i'm positive."

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

33 minutes ago, Scotius said:

From the lack of negativity of course

Ninja'd! I'm so ninja'd!

 

[NSEP]

Reminds me of Exotic Matter.

Cool to know that we are learning more about the universe we live in!

[Steel]

Correct me if I'm wrong, condensed matter was always my least favourite area of Physics, but this is exciton condensation, correct? So, much like all other condensates of quasi-particles, you get some interesting material properties to study and not much else?

[PB666]

2 hours ago, Steel said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, condensed matter was always my least favourite area of Physics, but this is exciton condensation, correct? So, much like all other condensates of quasi-particles, you get some interesting material properties to study and not much else?

high-efficiency thin-layer photovoltaic p degradation. If we consider two states of A, (a and α) and B (b and ß)

a + b <<<<-----> α + ß is considered to be a reversible always favoring a and b in the low energy state. If we consider A (an element in the p conductor) and B(an electron) that when ß is knocked from the ground state b (taken out of the system) as stable in the system only when ß is in the n-conductor (the reaction is forced by removal of ß). That a does remain in the α such that when the ß is returned by its neighbor that a and b are the preferred state. So that when the p lattice is relaxed it should retain no memory that an electron is removed. If the lattice element A retains characteristics of α then b will retain characteristics of ß and in this state pair α + ß may be free to form a' and b', a kinetically unfavored but thermodynamically stable reaction. Thus the longer that α and ß remained coupled in the unstable state the more likely they can be converted to a' and b'

In chemistry these are know as side reactions, the basic assumption is that if we look at a reaction profile in 3 dimensions and all possible reactions being a wedge in a pie from top down view, we can consider that energy input as a driver of the least favorable reactions, but there are to be considered catalyst which lower the reaction profile, catalyst hold intermediates in a state that lowers the thermodynamic energy required to reach a reaction product. In the same way if orbital energy can remember that a B has been plucked then the arrangements of the electrons that reflect this can be considered to be in a higher energy state, this can allow reactions more favorable to desired or undesired reactions to occur.

Basically in a reaction this 'thing' is an unexpected thing. The human analogy would be two passionate lovers meeting after a long hiatus, the male spotting his lover run to her in excitement, she stops him shakes his hand coldly and says 'long time no see' and the lover has to start all over again courting his lover.

[kerbiloid]

Can the holes make a black hole?

[PB666]

no, the holes are a variance in the lattice.

[Nuke]

i didnt know holes were a type of matter. i thought they were just a positive charge caused by a missing electron. i also didnt know it was a new thing, since its what makes transistors work (specifically the interface between a material with holes and a material with free electrons). 

Edited January 21, 2018 by Nuke

[wumpus]

36 minutes ago, Nuke said:

i didnt know holes were a type of matter. i thought they were just a positive charge caused by a missing electron. i also didnt know it was a new thing, since its what makes transistors work (specifically the interface between a material with holes and a material with free electrons). 

I'd really have to wonder if excitium only exists as some sort of ephemeral event, having electrons that are both there and not there, or somehow summoned out of the ether without producing a positron but instead a "hole".

I've always assumed that "holes" were simply lack of electrons.  Then again it took a lot of convincing to believe (well before learning Maxwell's equations) that fields were a thing as well.

[PB666]

2 hours ago, wumpus said:

I'd really have to wonder if excitium only exists as some sort of ephemeral event, having electrons that are both there and not there, or somehow summoned out of the ether without producing a positron but instead a "hole".

I've always assumed that "holes" were simply lack of electrons.  Then again it took a lot of convincing to believe (well before learning Maxwell's equations) that fields were a thing as well.

Consider a hole to be a type of information, in this way it can be equated with other forms of matter and energy.

 

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, PB666 said:

Consider a hole to be a type of information, in this way it can be equated with other forms of matter and energy.

This!

[wumpus]

14 hours ago, PB666 said:

Consider a hole to be a type of information, in this way it can be equated with other forms of matter and energy.

That is fine and dandy, but how does information have a charge?

Another link: https://physics.illinois.edu/news/article/24114

This sounds remarkably like the pork futures storage unit in Ankh-Morpork, but appears much more confirmed than simple hype.