In search of Majorana | Nature Physics

Access through your institution Buy or subscribe Paul Dirac's famous equation, which he first wrote down in January of 1928, predicted the existence of a spin-1/2 particle and a

corresponding antiparticle. The ensuing experimental discovery of the positron, the antiparticle of the electron, served to boost the theory. Dirac's equation helped establish a basis

for relativistic quantum field theory. But the equation had been studied for a full ten years before Italian physicist Ettore Majorana noticed an interesting special case. The equation is

really four coupled equations, one for each component of the Dirac field. If one demands that the solution be real, rather than complex, the equation resolves itself into two independent

pairs of equations, each pair describing a spin-1/2 particle, but now with no charge. The particle is its own antiparticle; clearly not like an electron or positron. This is a preview of

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ADDITIONAL ACCESS OPTIONS: * Log in * Learn about institutional subscriptions * Read our FAQs * Contact customer support Authors * Mark Buchanan View author publications You can also search

for this author inPubMed Google Scholar RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS Reprints and permissions ABOUT THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE Buchanan, M. In search of Majorana. _Nature Phys_ 11, 206

(2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3275 Download citation * Published: 03 March 2015 * Issue Date: March 2015 * DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3275 SHARE THIS ARTICLE Anyone you share

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