Posted on 08/31/2015 7:42:51 PM PDT by Sir Gawain
This is a pretty big deal.
An international team of physicists has found hints of leptons - a specific type of subatomic particle - behaving in strange ways not predicted by the Standard Model. They uncovered this while looking at the decay of particles called B mesons into lighter particles, including two types of leptons: the tau lepton and the muon.
According to a key Standard Model concept called 'lepton universality', all leptons are treated equally by all fundamental forces, which means that all leptons should decay at the same rate, once corrected for any difference in mass. But in the data, the team found a small but notable difference in the predicted rates of decay. This suggests that some type of as-yet undiscovered forces or particles could be interfering.
"The Standard Model says the world interacts with all leptons in the same way. There is a democracy there. But there is no guarantee that this will hold true if we discover new particles or new forces," one of the lead researchers, Hassan Jawahery, from the University of Maryland in the US, said in a press release. "Lepton universality is truly enshrined in the Standard Model. If this universality is broken, we can say that we've found evidence for non-standard physics."
It would be tempting to disregard this finding as an anomaly, if it wasn't for the fact that a similar discovery about lepton decay was made by the BaBar experiment at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Centre in the US in 2012. This experiment also looked at the decay of B mesons, but it achieved this decay by smashing together electrons, rather than the protons that power the LHC.
"The experiments were done in totally different environments, but they reflect the same physical model. This replication provides an important independent check on the observations," University of Maryland physicist Brian Hamilton explained. "The added weight of two experiments is the key here. This suggests that it's not just an instrumental effect - it's pointing to real physics."
The team now needs to confirm their observations with further experiments. The data used for this research were collected during the first run of the LHC between 2011 and 2012 - the same run that found the Higgs boson, which was the last missing piece of the Standard Model. But now that the particle accelerator is on its second run and achieving record-breaking energy levels, they'll have an even better chance of catching the decay in action again.
"We are planning a range of other measurements. The LHCb experiment is taking more data during the second run right now," said Jawahery. "Any knowledge from here on helps us learn more about how the universe evolved to this point. For example, we know that dark matter and dark energy exist, but we don't yet know what they are or how to explain them. Our result could be a part of that puzzle ... If we can demonstrate that there are missing particles and interactions beyond the Standard Model, it could help complete the picture."
The results will be published in the September 4 issue of Physical Review Letters, but have been published on arXiv ahead of time. We can't wait to see what researchers at the LHC find next.
/johnny
Besides scratching the curiosity itch, how does this benefit humanity?
Turtles all the way down, well except for that 4th layer down, that isn’t a turtle it is a Alligator...
There really is no way to tell. I expect that if we wver truly do understand the way the universe actually works at a fundamental level, we will be shockdd at the implications. I’m not yet convinced that we are really even on the right track.
Probably isn’t going to make any difference at all for another 200 years.
But what it all leads to then might be kinda cool.
Until then, I will bide my time.
I am a bit prejudiced when it comes to these sorts of things having done this sort of research at the post doc level. The immediate data sets which draw this information are there to scratch the curiosity itch. But there is an underlying technology below, in the accelerator physics, that does benefit humanity in many ways. Superconducting RF cavities, the detector itself, the beam injection methods, as well as the synchrotron radiation (high intensity X-rays that cannot be duplicated with a Cathode Ray Tube and PWM generator) are used in other experiments. They are in many ways the precursors of today's radiology machines which are now well beyond what was available even 20 years ago. These are the things that benefit humanity as a direct result of this sort of investigation.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. An answer I can live with.
I knew when I posed the question I would probably get many a snaky response (all the while hoping I would get and intelligent one). And beyond hope, one of the first responses I received was the one I was hoping for.
Anyone who goes to YouTube and types in ‘CERN’ will find a whacklotta videos that all claim there is something absolutely demonic going on, CERN workers doing some sort of weird occult dance celebrating the Indian deity ‘Shiva’, some extremely strange stuff, up to -and- including the theory that the LHC has actually been built to open up the Biblical ‘abyss’ from which all sorts of apocalyptic creatures will emerge as foretold in the Book of Revelation.
In any event, if there was ever something where the saying “Your Mileage May Vary” applied, this is it.
"The immediate data sets which draw this information are there to scratch the curiosity itch. But there is an underlying technology below, in the accelerator physics, that does benefit humanity in many ways. Superconducting RF cavities, the detector itself, the beam injection methods, as well as the synchrotron radiation (high intensity X-rays that cannot be duplicated with a Cathode Ray Tube and PWM generator) are used in other experiments. - They are in many ways the precursors of today's radiology machines which are now well beyond what was available even 20 years ago. These are the things that benefit humanity as a direct result of this sort of investigation."
Besides scratching the curiosity itch, how does this benefit humanity?
...
It’s fundamental knowledge. We build upon it and achieve greater knowledge and technology.
When stellar aberration was first observed in the 1700’s nobody had any idea how it would eventually play a role in relativity. And then relativity played a role in nuclear energy and so on.
I guess that is the response from most people. However, I've read that it may lead to the creation of new super-elements that won't decay to nothing in a split second. There's a lot that can be done with a new range of elements in electronics, construction, spaceflight, etc. A breakthrough can lead to something akin to the Industrial Revolution in years past, elevating humanity to new heights. Maybe. A big maybe.
“Besides scratching the curiosity itch, how does this benefit humanity?”
We’re now able to manipulate electromagnetism fairly well, and we can primitively work with the weak nuclear force in nuclear reactions. We have yet to understand how to use the strong force and we don’t really even know what gravity is, but imagine what we could do if we could control gravity.
09/23
Moonman62; roadcat; Ouderkirk; VanShuyten
Even at my age (69), I’m still able to learn ... thanks to my friends on FP.
Sorry, didn’t post the correctly.
Even at my age (69), I’m still able to learn ... thanks to my friends on FP.
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