A group of researchers from Aalto University (Finland) and Amherst College (USA) have succeeded in creating the first single-pole magnet in a laboratory. It is a milestone that will revolutionize the world of physics , by opening the possibility of discovering new particles of nature, unthinkable until now. The results have been published in the journal Nature .
Magnetic monopoles were predicted for the first time in the Theory of Relativity, formulated by Albert Einstein at the beginning of the 20th century; a little later, in 1931, they were theorized by physicist Paul Dirac in 1931, who predicted that the north and south poles of a magnet could exist independently. However, they could not prove the existence of this possibility until 1982. In this year, the physicist Blas Cabrera managed to register a magnetic monopole, but the results could not be repeated.
Later, in 2009 , Finnish researchers published a theory on how to create magnetic monopoles in a Bose-Einstein condensate , an atomic gas that is at a very low temperature, close to -273ºC, also known as absolute zero.
This method, after solving many technical problems, is what has led to the laboratory creation of the synthetic magnetic monopole.
This discovery provides a stronger foundation for current searches for magnetic monopoles that will involve CERN's famous Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which will be operational again in late 2014.
