Something’s off.A report describes a superconducting material, ytterbium diantimonide (YbSb2), that may break time-reversal symmetry: a mathematical property under which physical laws can often be run equally forward or backward in time.
The reported result is strange because the material was characterized as a type I superconductor, while this symmetry-breaking behavior is more commonly associated in the report with unconventional type II superconductors. The article says the material became superconducting at around -272 °C and that measurements detected tiny internal magnetic fields after it entered that state.
According to the report, the electrons may form an unconventional spin-triplet pairing whose magnetic effects do not cancel out. The researchers further suggest that the material's combined properties could be useful for protecting quantum information, but those implications remain a reported interpretation.
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