Strange particles in one dimension could rewrite quantum physics

Physicists rarely question one of the field’s most fundamental rules: every particle in the Universe is either a boson or a fermion. Those two categories cover everything – forces, matter, atoms, and light. Physicists have run experiments for nearly a century without finding an exception in ordinary three-dimensional space. In two-dimensional materials, the rule begin to break down. A strange class of particles can exist there that falls between the two categories. One dimension was assumed to be even more restrictive. Two new papers suggest that assumption may be wrong – and what they find in one dimension is stranger than anyone expected.

Strange particles in one dimension could rewrite quantum physics. Physicists rarely question one of the field’s most fundamental rules: every particle in the Universe is either a boson or a fermion. Those two categories cover everything – forces, matter, atoms, and light. Physicists have run experiments for nearly a century without finding an exception in ordinary three-dimensional space. In two-dimensional materials, the rule begin to break down. A strange class of particles can exist there that falls between the two categories. One dimension was assumed to be even more restrictive. Two new papers suggest that assumption may be wrong – and what they find in one dimension is stranger than anyone expected. Two camps of particles Walk into a physics class, and you’ll learn that nature serves up two kinds of elementary particles. Bosons carr...