In condensed matter physics, spin–charge separation is an unusual behavior of electrons in some materials in which they 'split' into three independent particles, the spinon, the orbiton and the holon (or chargon).
The theory of spin–charge separation originates with the work of Sin-Itiro Tomonaga who developed an approximate method for treating one-dimensional interacting quantum systems in 1950.
In a two-component Bose gas in 1D, strong interactions can produce a maximal form of spin–charge separation.
[4] Building on physicist F. Duncan M. Haldane's 1981 theory, experts from the Universities of Cambridge and Birmingham proved experimentally in 2009 that a mass of electrons artificially confined in a small space together will split into spinons and holons due to the intensity of their mutual repulsion (from having the same charge).
[5][6] A team of researchers working at the Advanced Light Source (ALS) of the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory observed the peak spectral structures of spin–charge separation three years prior.