Abstract
When atoms are brought together to form a solid, electrons interact quantum mechanically and new states of matter emerge.
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Notes
- 1.
This picture is very much like Dirac’s original picture of particles and antiparticles. For a discussion see Lancaster and Blundell (2014).
- 2.
The superconducting transition involves the breaking of the phase symmetry of the wave function in a system with charge. As a result, the superconductor does not support analogous particles to the phonon: the description of the disappearance of these is known as the Higgs mechanism, and is very similar to the Higgs mechanism in the standard model.
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Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Thomas Hicken and Ben Huddart for useful comments on this essay.
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Lancaster, T. (2022). The Metal: A Model for Modern Physics. In: Wuppuluri, S., Stewart, I. (eds) From Electrons to Elephants and Elections. The Frontiers Collection. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92192-7_21
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