Electrons Have Substructure.

[Talanum46]

12 hours ago, OceanBreeze said:

plus the larger electron system must be.

What is the larger electron system?

10*e/5 = 2e, so abstracting to e/5 charge seems erroneous.

Edited Sunday at 04:39 PM by Talanum46

[OceanBreeze]

On 11/17/2024 at 11:16 AM, OceanBreeze said:

Yes! The quasi-particles are electrons, and therefore cannot be sub-particles of electrons.

 

Can you can see that now?

 

What F. Wilczek, and a few others are doing, is magnetically and electrically exciting a part (an island of electrons), of a larger electron system. Although the island is distinguished from the larger electron system via four electrical contacts, the island, together with the larger body of electrons,  still comprises an open system. In such an open system, the total potential is fixed, but the number of particles in the island is not.

 

What this means, there is no a priori requirement that the total charge of the island be quantized in units of e,  much less in units of 2e, even though the island plus the larger electron system must be.

 

The island charge could change in increments of one quasi-particle charge, such as any small (less than e) charge imbalance, supplied from the electrical contacts.

 

For example, a ∆Q = 2e  charge introduced from the contacts can result in the creation of ten e/5 quasi-particles in the island, and at the same time, increase the electronic (negative) charge of the larger body of electrons by precisely 10 e/5 , thus leaving the total population charge unaffected.

 

The above explains how Anyons are collective excitations of many electrons in two dimensional devices. They are artificial quasi-particles which, under very special circumstances, carry fractional electric charge.

 

Finally, Anyons are not elementary particles that comprise a supposed substructure of electrons.

 

Essentially, they act as electrons with fractional charges.

 

The above explanation is extremely over-simplified but contains the basic idea of what Anyons are. Hopefully, this will help clear up some of the misconceptions about Anyons seen in this thread. (But I am more than likely just wasting my time, we shall see)

 

 

 

I made a mistake in the above explanation.

I wrote: "For example, a ∆Q = 2e  charge introduced from the contacts can result in the creation of ten e/5 quasi-particles in the island, and at the same time, increase the electronic (negative) charge of the larger body of electrons by precisely 10 e/5 , thus leaving the total population charge unaffected."

This is obviously wrong. If ten e/5 quasi-particles are created, the charge of the larger body of electrons would need to decrease by precisely 10 e/5 to conserve charge.

Other than that mistake, not being a particle physicist, this is the best I can do to explain what Anyons are and why I disagree with the central proposition of this thread that "electrons have substructure". I have seen no evidence to support this claim and plenty of evidence against it. I won't continue to argue against a baseless claim.