Researchers in China, France and Australia have found new evidence for an exotic quantum state of matter called a spin supersolid. The discovery, made in an antiferromagnetic material with a triangular atomic lattice structure, represents a breakthrough in fundamental physics and might also aid the development of new cooling techniques that do not require liquid helium, since the material also shows a giant magnetocaloric effect.
As their name implies, supersolids are materials that flow without friction (like a superfluid) even though their component particles are arranged in a crystalline lattice (like a solid). As such, these materials break two continuous symmetries: translational invariance, due to the crystalline order; and gauge symmetry, due to the material’s frictionless flow.
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