China-led team seeking elusive quantum of gravity finds first evidence of particles behaving like gravitons
- Scientists from China, US and Germany find electrons to have spin only expected in gravitons, a long-sought-after particle that gives rise to gravity
- Chinese researchers took three years to build test facility that they hope ‘will lead to more cutting-edge discoveries at the quantum frontier’
A China-led team has detected the first experimental evidence for particles that behave like a graviton, a long-sought-after particle that gives rise to gravity, a fundamental force in our universe.
Although the experiment did not confirm the existence of gravitons directly, it was the closest scientists had been and would open a new pathway to the search for gravitons in laboratories, the team reported in the journal Nature this week.
“Our work has shown the first experimental substantiation of gravitons in condensed matter since the elusive particle was conceptualised in the 1930s,” the study’s lead author Du Lingjie from Nanjing University told state news agency Xinhua on Thursday.
“The graviton is a bridge connecting quantum mechanics and general relativity theory. If confirmed, it will have huge implications for modern physics research,” he said.
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The study was highly collaborative, according to the paper. Researchers at Princeton University prepared high-quality semiconductor samples, while the experiment was carried out at a unique facility that took Du and his team three years to build.