This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Quasiparticles arise from the complex interaction of many particles in solids; for example, we describe lattice vibrations in crystals as phonons. Fractons are exotic quasiparticles that occur at the vertices of magnetic domain walls between different spin orders.
What makes them special is that they are virtually immobile and can only be displaced by other fractons. In theory, this limited mobility could be exploited to robustly store quantum information. Theoretical physicists postulate the existence of fractons in various systems, such as quantum spin liquids.
These are exotic states of matter in crystals in which the magnetic moments of electrons do not assume a fixed order even at 0 K but remain in constant motion, just like atoms in a liquid. The postulated fractons in a quantum spin liquid have not yet been observed experimentally, and their theoretical prediction was only possible within highly generalized gauge field theories (rank-2 U(1) gauge theories). A study led by Johannes Reuther and Dr.
Nils Niggemann has now taken a major step toward experimental verification by extending the theoretical prediction to a more realistic solid-state model. The work is published in the journal Nature Communications. Unlike classical models, they also simulate quantum effects; however, this led to disappointing results in the group's previous publications.
The quantum effects were either too strong or too weak, with the result that the fractons were either destroyed or could only exist as classical particles without any quantum properties. Thanks to improved modeling, for example, of spin interactions, numerical simulations have now provided evidence for this phase of matter. "When modeling this complex spin interaction, we benefit from personal exchanges with HZB colleagues in experimental solid-state physics," said Reuther.
Now, the next step toward experimental verification is to develop real materials that reproduce the properties assumed in the theoretical model. In this context, Rydberg atom simulators could be an interesting candidate for a detection experiment. Nils Niggemann et al, Gapless fracton quantum spin liquid and emergent photons in a 2D spin-1 model, Nature Communications (2026).
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