Magnetic monopoles are fundamentally important but highly elusive elementary particles exhibiting quantised magnetic charge. The prospect for studying them has brightened in recent years with the theoretical realisation that, in certain classes of magnetic insulators, the thermally excited states exhibit all the characteristics of magnetic monopoles. Now, a collaboration led by Professor JC Séamus Davis and Professor Stephen J Blundell of the University of Oxford’s Department of Physics has developed a new approach to detecting and studying these ‘emergent’ magnetic monopoles – including the discovery that, when amplified, the noise they make is audible to humans. The findings are published in the journal Nature.
Magnetic monopole noise
Ritika Dusad, Franziska K. K. Kirschner, Jesse C. Hoke, Benjamin R. Roberts, Anna Eyal, Felix Flicker, Graeme M. Luke, Stephen J. Blundell & J. C. Séamus Davis
Nature 571, 231 (2019)