Quasiparticles

A phonon is a quasiparticle, collective excitation in a periodic, elastic arrangement of atoms or molecules in condensed matter, specifically in solids and some liquids. In the context of optically trapped objects, the quantized vibration mode can be defined as phonons as long as the modal wavelength of the oscillation is smaller than the size of the object. A type of quasiparticle in physics, a phonon is an excited state in the quantum mechanical quantization of the modes of vibrations for elastic structures of interacting particles. Phonons can be thought of as quantized sound waves, similar

conceptual and mathematical opposite of an electron

thumbnail|Frenkel exciton, bound electron-hole pair where the hole is localized at a position in the crystal represented by black dots thumbnail|Wannier–Mott exciton, bound electron-hole pair that is not localized at a crystal position. This figure schematically shows diffusion of the exciton across the lattice.

In condensed matter physics, a quasiparticle is a concept used to describe a collective behavior of a group of particles that can be treated as if they were a single particle. Formally, quasiparticles and collective excitations are closely related phenomena that arise when a microscopically complicated system such as a solid behaves as if it contained different weakly interacting particles in vacuum.

thumb|250px|Solitary wave (water waves)|Solitary wave in a laboratory [[wave channel]]

pair of electrons or other fermions bound together at low temperature allowing for superconductivity

In physics, a plasmon is a quantum of plasma oscillation. Just as light (an optical oscillation) consists of photons, the plasma oscillation consists of plasmons. The plasmon can be considered as a quasiparticle since it arises from the quantization of plasma oscillations, just like phonons are quantizations of mechanical vibrations. Thus, plasmons are collective (a discrete number) oscillations of the free electron gas density. For example, at optical frequencies, plasmons can couple with a photon to create another quasiparticle called a plasmon polariton.

A magnon is a quasiparticle, a collective excitation of the spin structure of an electron in a crystal lattice. In the equivalent wave picture of quantum mechanics, a magnon can be viewed as a quantized spin wave. Magnons carry a fixed amount of energy and lattice momentum, and are spin-1, indicating they obey boson behavior.

A polaron is a quasiparticle used in condensed matter physics to understand the interactions between electrons and atoms in a solid material. The polaron concept was proposed by Lev Landau in 1933 and Solomon Pekar in 1946 to describe an electron moving in a dielectric crystal where the atoms displace from their equilibrium positions to effectively screen the charge of an electron, known as a phonon cloud. This lowers the electron mobility and increases the electron's effective mass.

thumb|270px|Dispersion relation of phonon polaritons in GaP. Red curves are the uncoupled phonon and photon dispersion relations, black curves are the result of coupling (from top to bottom: upper polariton, LO phonon, lower polariton).

thumb|Roton dispersion relation, showing the quasiparticle energy E(p) as a function of momentum p. A quasiparticle with momentum generated in the local energy minimum is called a roton. In theoretical physics, a roton is an elementary excitation, or quasiparticle, seen in superfluid helium-4 and Bose–Einstein condensates with long-range dipolar interactions or spin-orbit coupling. The dispersion relation of elementary excitations in this superfluid shows a linear increase from the origin, but exhibits first a maximum and then a minimum in energy as the momentum increases. Excitations with mom

quasiparticle that electrons can split into during the process of spin–charge separation

coherent delocalized electron oscillation that exists at the interface between two materials where the real part of the dielectric function changes sign across the interface

Spinons are one of three quasiparticles, along with holons and orbitons, that electrons in solids are able to split into during the process of spin–charge separation, when extremely tightly confined at temperatures close to absolute zero. The electron can always be theoretically considered as a bound state of the three, with the spinon carrying the spin of the electron, the orbiton carrying the orbital location and the holon carrying the charge, but in certain conditions they can behave as independent quasiparticles.

Orbitons are one of three quasiparticles, along with holons and spinons, that electrons in solids are able to split into during the process of spin–charge separation, when extremely tightly confined at temperatures close to absolute zero. The electron can always be theoretically considered as a bound state of the three, with the spinon carrying the spin of the electron, the orbiton carrying the orbital location and the holon carrying the charge, but in certain conditions they can become deconfined and behave as independent particles.

a state that can be achieved in a system of interacting quantum spins

A dropleton or quantum droplet is a quasiparticle comprising a collection of electrons and holes inside a semiconductor. Dropletons give the first known quasiparticle characterization where the quasiparticle behaves like a liquid. The creation of dropletons was announced on 26 February 2014 in a Nature article, which presented evidence for the creation of dropletons in an electron–hole plasma inside a gallium arsenide quantum well by ultrashort laser pulses. Their existence was not predicted before the experiment.

behavior of electrons in condensed matter physics

In physics, the plasmaron was proposed by Lundqvist in 1967 as a quasiparticle arising in a system that has strong plasmon-electron interactions. In the original work, the plasmaron was proposed to describe a secondary peak (or satellite) in the photoemission spectral function of the electron gas. More precisely it was defined as an additional zero of the quasi-particle equation (\omega-\epsilon_H -Re[\Sigma(\omega)]=0). The same authors pointed out, in a subsequent work, that this extra solution might be an artifact of the used approximations:

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In physics, a phason is a form of collective excitation found in aperiodic crystal structures. Phasons are a type of quasiparticle: an emergent phenomenon of many-particle systems. The phason can also be seen as a degree of freedom unique to quasicrystals. Similar to phonons, phasons are quasiparticles associated with atomic motion. However, whereas phonons are related to the translation of atoms, phasons are associated with atomic rearrangement. As a result of this rearrangement, or modulation, the waves that describe the position of atoms in the crystal change phase—hence the term "phason".

In condensed matter physics, biexcitons are created from two free excitons, analogous to di-positronium in vacuum.

electromagnetic waves that travel along an interface

semiconductor physics

the topological bound state of an electron and an even number of quantized vortices, sometimes visually pictured as the bound state of an electron and, attached, an even number of magnetic flux quanta

class of chemical compound