https://phys.org/news/2017-05-destruction-quantum-monopole.html

 

Not true magnetic monopoles (synthetic electromagnetism or engineered vector potential) but it is very cool indeed.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1611.07766.pdf

https://phys.org/news/2014-01-physicists-synthetic-magnetic-monopole-years.html

"The creation of a synthetic magnetic monopole should provide us with unprecedented insight into aspects of the natural magnetic monopole—if indeed it exists," said Hall, explaining the implications of his work.

 

I'm curiouswha` at some of the practical application may result. I think we are in exciting times.

 

https://phys.org/news/2017-05-destruction-quantum-monopole.html

From the article:

The scientists start with an extremely dilute gas of rubidium atoms chilled near absolute zero, at which temperature it forms a Bose-Einstein condensate. Subsequently, they prepare the system in a non-magnetized state and ramp an external magnetic-field zero point into the condensate thus creating an isolated quantum monopole. Then they hold the zero point still and wait for the system to gradually magnetize along the spatially varying magnetic field. The resulting destruction of the quantum monopole gives birth to a Dirac monopole.

Geordi, is that you?

 

I'm curiouswha` at some of the practical application may result. I think we are in exciting times.

No idea, this is basic science research with little or no practical current application. By cooling the atoms to near 0K and using carefully designed fields to make defects (tiny quantum whirlpools) in normal structures they are creating a little universe (in Bose–Einstein condensates) with rules that don't apply in the macro-world because it would violate basic electromagnetic theory.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/0903.4732.pdf

On the other hand, spinor BECs are well-suited to host artificially generated gauge fields (synthetic electromagnetism) which can provide an alternative method to realize a magnetic monopole [15].

These things are dynamically unstable at normal conditions. Like one of the links said, "it's an ice sculpture not the real thing". It looks pretty but will melt if we touch and handle it.

 

Hi,

Well the normal way to learn new things is to remove as many variables as possible, and see how something behaves. That's because once we get rid of some of the variables (that act almost like noise) certain properties start to show up that we would never see without doing that. It's common to either get rid of dimensions or rotate them into orthogonal directions so that they dont interfere with each other any more, then we can see how they each behave individually. Once we know that, then we can form formulas that are based on those dimensions and thus not only have a better understanding but also can convey this to someone else in a simpler form.

So the application is to study monopole behavior after removing the dimension of temperature which interferes with the detection of certain behaviors, and once that is done, it may help clear up another theory that depends on knowing that information, or help render some application viable when before it was not reachable at all. To detail the likely practical outcome is once the behavior is known, it may also then be known after including the temperature back into the mix and then the information may be usable at higher temperatures too.

Practical uses are probably things that depend on magnetics or can be used with magnetics, such as memory storage, maybe power components where control is a key issue, stuff like that. There could be many though as this is always hard to predict.

For what it is worth, i dont have a problem with something that has good evidence to back it up 'violating' electromagnetic theory, i only have a problem with electromagnetic theory violating an observation somewhere in the universe because that is the only definite possibility while the other is still just a guess of sorts ... a very good guess, but still a guess ... hence the ongoing experiments.

Personally i find it hard to believe in a monopole because of the way we think of flux, but maybe there is some catch somewhere in the physics we dont know about yet. We have to experiment at the limits of technology and hope we get there, and this often brings us near the limits of our environment.

 

I would think the most important factor for practical applications using this and other BEC related behaviors would be to create a stable Bose Einstein condensate at practical cryogenic temperatures.

Compared to more commonly encountered states of matter, Bose–Einstein condensates are extremely fragile. The slightest interaction with the external environment can be enough to warm them past the condensation threshold, eliminating their interesting properties and forming a normal gas.

Today it's still the stuff of Sci-Fi.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectral