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Foundations of Asymmetry

2020; Springer Nature; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1007/978-981-15-2549-0_2

2191-5318

José Afonso, Cristiana Bessa, Filipe Cabral Pinto, Diogo Ribeiro, Beatriz Moura, Tiago Rocha, Marcus Vinícius, Rui Canário-Lemos, Rafael Peixoto, Filipe Manuel Clemente,

Astro and Planetary Science

Physics has established that reality relies on a series of phase transitions, resulting in symmetry-breaking events [1], and this can be extended to chemistry as well [2]. At a fundamental level, electrons and quarks, two elementary constituents of matter, have an intrinsic angular momentum—the spin—which, by convention, is said to be left-handed when rotation is clockwise and right-handed when it is anticlockwise. Only left-handed particles experience weak interaction or force, thus violating parity symmetry [3]. The electromagnetic field also emerges from a symmetry-breaking phenomenon, whereby it is no longer unified in an electroweak field [1]. In topological superconductors, initially symmetric crystalline structures produce spontaneous phase transitions that break time-reversal symmetry [4]. Asymmetry is also a fundamental geostatistical property, as it is a natural consequence of dynamic processes, such as land surface elevation and groundwater contamination [5].