this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2025
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The usual misleading sensationalistic title. It isn't the "shape of the electron" at all. A less misleading – but still not quite correct – explanation is that they have determined the statistical distribution of electron quantum states in a material. Very roughly speaking, it tells us where we're more or less likely to find an electron in the material, and in what kind of state. Somewhat very distantly like a population density graph on a geographical map. Determining such a population density doesn't mean "revealing the shape of a person".
The paper can also be found on arXiv. What they determine is the so-called quantum geometric tensor. I find the paper's abstract also misleading:
but it's a statistical object more than a "physical" one.
It's a very neat and important study, and I don't understand the need to be so misleading about it :(
Uh... So are they like tiny basketballs or what?
The question of what an electron really is, is still open as far as I know. Even the question of whether it's a "particle", is still open. In many or most theories the question of "what it is" is somewhat bypassed. In quantum field theory you describe electrons as a field (like the electromagnetic field), but all fields have the peculiar property that they show energy exchanges in very localized, point-like regions of space – that's why you can think of them as particles sometimes. Take a look at Wald's book to get an idea.
There are even still open theories that try to describe electrons as mini charged black holes; not to speak about strings, and so on...