According to a study shared on a prepress server and confirmed to, scientists at the Large Hadron Collider, near Geneva, may have broken particle physics, after detecting an abnormal signal that did not fit the standard model and to have insinuated a new natural force. CERN official website.
CERN went beyond the standard model
CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHCb) experiment officially announced new findings that hinted at a violation of the standard model in particle physics. This emerged from the 10-year analysis of data on how transient (or temporarily existing) and unstable particles called B mesons decay into more conventional forms of matter, such as electrons.
More specifically, the new findings suggest a possible violation of the universality of the lepton flavor, which was announced during Moriond’s lecture on electroweak interactions of unified theories, as well as an online seminar at CERN of the European Organization for in Nuclear Research.
The standard model underpins our scientific understanding of the subatomic world and holds that particles tend to decompose into products such as electrons at the same rate as they do into heavier particles very similar to an electron called muons.
However, new findings from CERN suggest that something strange is happening. Instead of decaying in line with the standard model and producing muons and electrons at the same rate, B mesons tend to produce electrons, as if it were the preferred result.
It’s still too early to call “intriguing suggestion”
“We would expect this particle to decay into the final state containing electrons and the final state containing muons at the same rate as the others,” said Chris Parkes, an experimental particle physicist at the University of Manchester, in a report The guardian. “What we have is an intriguing clue that maybe these two processes don’t happen at the same pace, but it’s not conclusive.”
In quantum physics, the new finding has a significance of 3.1 sigma, which means that its probability of accuracy is about one in 1,000. For those unfamiliar with quantum physics, this may seem promising, but in general, particle physicists are wary of jumping the gun until a new find reaches five sigma, when the chances that the results are a random are only a few million.
“It’s an intriguing track, but we’ve seen the sigmas come and go before,” Parkes said. “It happens surprisingly often.”
In particle physics, the standard model describes how particles and forces govern the subatomic universe. The theory was built into pieces over the last half century and helps scientists describe how elementary particles called quarks build neutrons and protons inside atomic nuclei. It also explains how the two components of nuclei when combined with electrons make up all conventional matter.
New cast shadow on the standard model
Particle physics includes three of the four fundamental forces of nature: the weak force responsible for nuclear reactions inside the sun and electromagnetism; a strong force that binds atomic nuclei together.
Unfortunately, the standard model does not explain everything. There is still a fourth force in the universe, probably more familiar: gravity, which, while incredibly powerful on the colossal scale of black holes, fails to account for approximately 95% of the universe’s physicists who suspect that it is made up of something else.
The consensus was and still is that most of the universe is made up of dark energy, a cosmic force responsible for driving the expansion of the universe throughout its life, and also of dark matter, a substance. elusive that holds together the cosmic network of matter, like an invisible skeleton.
However, this possible recent finding has to do with particle physics. I “[i]If it turns out that with further analysis of additional processes, we could confirm that, it would be extremely exciting, “Parkes said. This would cast a new shadow on the standard model and create the need for something additional in the fundamentals. particle physics theory.
Corrections also bring us closer to a unified theory of physics
And Parkes thinks that this latest research, when added to other similar results from B-meson experimentation, creates a more compelling possibility.
“I would say there’s prudent excitement,” Parkes said. “We are intrigued because this result is not only quite significant, but it fits the pattern of some previous LHCb results and other experiments around the world.”
“There could be a new quantum force that causes the B mesons to break into muons at the wrong rate,” said Theoretical Physics Professor Ben Allanach of Cambridge University. “It’s sticking them in and letting them disintegrate into muons at the rate we’d expect.”
“This force could help explain the peculiar pattern of the masses of the different particles of matter,” Allanach added. While this has yet to be confirmed, particle physics is evolving and with it the form of a fundamental unifying theory of physics.
This was a last minute story and was regularly updated as new information became available.