Until now, electrons have been regarded as elementary
particles—which means that scientists thought they had no
component parts or substructure. But now, electrons have been
observed decaying into two separate parts—causing physicists to
rethink what they know about the particles. The electrons split
into two separate parts, each carrying a particular property of
the electron. In layman's terms? The first, called a "spinon"
carries its spin—which causes electrons to behave a bit like
compass point. The second, called an "orbiton" carries its
orbital moment—that's what keeps electrons moving around the
nucleus of atoms. The result is reported in this week's issue of
Nature. Jeroen van den Brink, one of the researchers, explains:
"It had been known for some time that, in particular materials,
an electron can in principle be split, but until now the
empirical evidence for this separation into independent spinons
and orbitons was lacking. Now that we know where exactly to look
for them, we are bound to find these