Talk-Polywell.org

Jonathan Morris, Alan Tennant and colleagues (HZB) undertook a neutron scattering experiment at the Berlin research reactor. The material under investigation was a single crystal of Dysprosium Titanate. This material crystallises in a quite remarkable geometry, the so called pyrochlore-lattice. With the help of neutron scattering Morris and Tennant show that the magnetic moments inside the material had reorganised into so-called 'spin-spaghetti'. This name comes from the ordering of the dipoles themselves, such that a network of contorted tubes (strings) develops, through which magnetic flux is transported. These can be made visible by their interaction with the neutrons which themselves carry a magnetic moment. Thus the neutrons scatter as a reciprocal representation of the Strings.

During the neutron scattering measurements a magnetic field was applied to the crystal by the researchers. With this field they could influence the symmetry and orientation of the strings. Thereby it was possible to reduce the density of the string networks and promote the monopole dissociation. As a result, at temperatures from 0.6 to 2 Kelvin, the strings are visible and have magnetic monopoles at their ends.

The signature of a gas made up by these monopoles has also been observed in heat capacity measured by Bastian Klemke (HZB). Providing further confirmation of the existence of monopoles and showing that they interact in the same way as electric charges.

Skipjack wrote:I saw that, even thought about posting it here. I am just not sure what it does that would help with anything fusion related. It is still pretty cool though.

Professor Science wrote:Yeah, they're not particles with disctinct magnetic charge, they're materials with net zero magnetic charge, but regions of net postive or negative. Which is unusual, but alas, not terribly usable yet.