The usual misleading sensationalistic title. It isn’t the “shape of the electron” at all. A less misleading – but still not quite correct – explanation is that they have determined the statistical distribution of electron quantum states in a material. Very roughly speaking, it tells us where we’re more or less likely to find an electron in the material, and in what kind of state. Somewhat very distantly like a population density graph on a geographical map. Determining such a population density doesn’t mean “revealing the shape of a person”.
The paper can also be found on arXiv. What they determine is the so-called quantum geometric tensor. I find the paper’s abstract also misleading:
The Quantum Geometric Tensor (QGT) is a central physical object…
but it’s a statistical object more than a “physical” one.
It’s a very neat and important study, and I don’t understand the need to be so misleading about it :(
The usual misleading sensationalistic title. It isn’t the “shape of the electron” at all. A less misleading – but still not quite correct – explanation is that they have determined the statistical distribution of electron quantum states in a material. Very roughly speaking, it tells us where we’re more or less likely to find an electron in the material, and in what kind of state. Somewhat very distantly like a population density graph on a geographical map. Determining such a population density doesn’t mean “revealing the shape of a person”.
The paper can also be found on arXiv. What they determine is the so-called quantum geometric tensor. I find the paper’s abstract also misleading:
but it’s a statistical object more than a “physical” one.
It’s a very neat and important study, and I don’t understand the need to be so misleading about it :(
Science journalism doesn’t require science degrees… but it really should.
Thank you!