Free electrons moving through space are fundamental and indivisible: they are not built up of smaller particles, in contrast with protons and neutrons. However, within materials, interactions among electrons and atoms can give rise to quasiparticles, quantum states in which groups of electrons behave as new, particle-like excitations.
Physicists have now successfully created quasiparticles that split the electron's orbital characteristics from its spin. To accomplish this, Justine Schlappa et al. studied a special material in which electrons are confined to one-dimensional interactions at low temperatures, so that electron-electron interactions are dominant. Using resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) at the Swiss Light Source facility, they determined that the electron orbital states propagated through the material independently of the spin.
Read the comments on this post
