華人科學家團隊找到馬約拉納費米子

A Chinese-American scientist and his team discovered a particle that can be both matter and antimatter, which can potentially lead to more advanced quantum computers.

一名美籍華裔科學家及其團隊發現了一種既可以是物質、也可以是反物質的粒子，這有可能會使得人類造出更加先進的量子計算機。

The particle, called Majorana fermion, is named after Italian theoretical physicist Ettore Majorana, who first predicted its existence in 1937.

這種粒子被稱爲“馬約拉納費米子”，以意大利理論物理學家埃託雷·馬約拉納之名命名，他在1937年時第一次預言了這種粒子的存在。

Typically, when a particle — the basic building block of matter — and an antiparticle — its identical twin but with an opposite charge — collide, they will annihilate each other, releasing a burst of energy.

通常情況下，當粒子（構成物質的最基礎模塊）和反粒子（反粒子如同粒子的雙生子，但是卻帶有相反的電荷）發生碰撞，他們會相互湮滅，並釋放大量的能量，

The Majorana fermion, however, is a strange exception that can simultaneously exist both as a particle and as its own antiparticle. This hypothesis has fascinated and puzzled scientists ever since.

但是，馬約拉納費米子卻是一個奇怪的例外，這種粒子可以既作爲粒子，又作爲反粒子而存在。自從提出之日起，這一假說就引起了科學家們的興趣和困惑。

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The latest discovery "concludes one of the most intensive searches in fundamental physics, which spanned exactly 80 years," said Zhang Shoucheng, a Stanford University physicist and a foreign academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who proposed the experiment plan.

斯坦福大學物理學家、中科院外籍院士張首晟爲該實驗提供了方案，他認爲最近的這次發現，“爲基礎物理學界跨越整整80年、研究最爲密集的一個項目作出了結論”。

The research team, led by Associate Professor Jing Xia of the University of California, Irvine, and UCLA Professor Kang-Lung Wang, dubbed the fermion the "angel particle" in reference to Dan Brown's 2000 thriller novel Angels And Demons, which involves a bomb made from a combination of particle and antiparticle.

該研究小組由加州大學歐文分校副教授夏晶以及加州大學洛杉磯分校教授王康隆領導，他們參照丹·布朗2000年的小說《天使與魔鬼》（該小說提到了一種用正反粒子製成的炸彈），將馬約拉納費米子稱之爲“天使粒子”。

"Our team predicted exactly where to find the Majorana fermion and what to look for as its 'smoking gun' experimental signature," Zhang said in a news release from Stanford University.

張首晟在斯坦福大學的一次新聞發佈會上表示：“我們的團隊準確預測了在哪裏可以找到馬約拉納費米子，以及在'煙槍'試驗中我們應該尋找什麼。”

In the future, Majorana fermions could be used to build quantum computers that are more resilient to environmental disturbance, which has been a major obstacle in their development.

未來，馬約拉納費米子可以用來製造量子計算機，抗環境干擾的能力將會更強--而這也是計算機發展的主要障礙之一。