I was reading an article today:
https://phys.org/news/2023-08-demon-physicists-year-old-massless-neutral.amp
…and it got me thinking. If electrons have mass and charge, how can they combine together in a metal and become massless and charge-less? Where does the mass go? I’m assuming it becomes energy because of e=mc^2, but what does that energy manifest as?
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This study is a bit above my pay grade, but the “demon particle” in this case is a quasiparticle which means it isn’t a particle in the sense that you are familiar with.
Because of this, “massless” also has a different meaning. I’m assuming that this refers to the effective mass of this quasiparticle which is sort of a measure of its response to external stimuli.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_mass_(solid-state_physics)
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