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The power to manipulate virtual particles.

Capabilities[]

The user can create, shape and manipulate virtual particles, in physics a transient fluctuation that exhibits many characteristics of an ordinary particle, but exists for only a short time. Virtual Particles do not always carry the same mass as the corresponding real particle, although they always conserve the energy and momentum.

The term is somewhat loose and vaguely defined, in that it refers to the view that the world is made up of "real particles": it is not; rather, "real particles" are better understood to be excitations of the underlying quantum fields. Virtual Particles are also excitations of the underlying fields but are "temporary".

The longer the Virtual Particle exists, the closer its characteristics become relative to those of ordinary particles. They are important in the physics of many processes, including particle scattering and Casimir Forces. In quantum field theory, even classical forces - such as electromagnetic repulsion or attraction between two charges -- can be thought of as due to an exchange of many Virtual Photons between the charges.

Written in the usual mathematical notations, in the equations of physics, there is no mark of the distinction between virtual and actual particles. The amplitude that a Virtual Particle exists interferes with the amplitude for its non-existence, whereas for an actual particle the cases of existence and non-existence cease to be coherent with each other and do not interfere anymore.

Applications (General)[]

Applications (Detail)[]

Associations[]

Limitations[]

  • Prolonged use of the virtual particles at one time may cause them to revert to actual particles which are harder to manipulate.
  • Creating virtual particles may take time and concentration.
  • The effects of virtual particles may be fully unknown, due to the vague definition of them.
  • Groups of virtual particles may not function in the same way groups of actual particles would.

Known Users[]

  • Janie (A Certain Scientific Railgun); via Diffusion Ghost
  • Arturis (Star Trek Voyager); via Particle Synthesis

Gallery[]

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