Majorana particle glimpsed in lab (BBC)
By Jonathan Amos
Science correspondent, BBC News
Scientists think they may finally have seen evidence for a famously elusive quarry in particle physics.
The Majorana fermion was first predicted 75 years ago - a particle that could be its own anti-particle.
Now Dutch researchers, who have devised some exotic and minute circuitry to test for the Majorana's existence, believe their results show the fermion to be real.
The team has reported the details of its experiments in Science magazine.
"It opens up some very interesting ideas," said Leo Kouwenhoven from the Delft University of Technology.
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more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17695944
abstract (full article for AAAS members): http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2012/04/11/science.1222360
No, I never heard of it either. From the description, it sounds like a 'quasiparticle', not a subatomic particle. That is, it is a collection of matter and energy which displays behavior that can be mathematically described as for a single particle (cf phonons, excitons, etc.).
The Wiki entries on both Majorano fermions and Ettore Majorano are interesting reading.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Tamburini: Neutrinos Are Majorana Particles, Relativity Is OK
By Tommaso Dorigo | October 10th 2011
<snip>
Tamburini and Laveder's paper (which you can download from the arxiv) explains how a fictitious "imaginary mass" term in the solution of Majorana equations for neutrino propagation may be responsible for the observed faster-than-light travel of neutrinos in a dense medium.
<snip>
What I find interesting is that Tamburini and Laveder do not stop at discussing the theoretical interpretation of the alleged superluminal motion, but put their hypothesis to the test by comparing known measurements of neutrino velocity on a graph, where the imaginary mass is computed from the momentum of neutrinos and the distance traveled in a dense medium. The data show a very linear behaviour, which may constitute an explanation of the Opera effect:
<snip>
Typical bloody Dutch. 
Cool, though. Add me to the "Never heard of it" list. 
