Thorfinn.au sends along big physics news: magnetic monopoles
have been detected at low temperatures in "Dirac strings" within
a single crystal of Dysprosium Titanate. Two papers are being
published today in the journal Science and two more on
arXiv.org, as yet unpublished, provide further evidence.
"Theoretical work had shown that monopoles probably exist, and
they have been measured indirectly. But the Science papers are
the first direct experiments to record the monopole's effects on
the spin-ice material. The papers use neutrons to detect atoms
in the crystal aligned into long daisy chains. These daisy
chains tie each north and south monopole together. Known as
'Dirac strings,' the chains, as well as the existence of
monopoles, were predicted in the 1930s by the British
theoretical physicist Paul Dirac. Heat measurements in one paper
also support the monopole argument. The two, as yet unpublished,
papers on arXiv add to the evidence. The first provides
additional observations, and the second uses a new tec