Electron's negativity cut in half by supercomputer: Simulations slice electron in half -- a physical process that cannot be done in nature

Electron's negativity cut in half by supercomputer: Simulations slice electron in half -- a physical process that cannot be done in nature:

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While physicists at the Large Hadron Collider smash together thousands of protons and other particles to see what matter is made of, they're never going to hurl electrons at each other. No matter how high the energy, the little negative particles won't break apart. But that doesn't mean they are indestructible.

Using several massive supercomputers, a team of physicists has split a simulated electron perfectly in half. The results, which were published in the Jan. 13 issue of Science, are another example of how tabletop experiments on ultra-cold atoms and other condensed-matter materials can provide clues about the behavior of fundamental particles.