Fully reconstructed LHCb model events. Particles identified as pawns, kaon, etc. appear in different colors. Credits: CERN, LHCb . Collaboration
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Results announced by the LHCb trial in
In March 2020, the same experiment released evidence that particles violate one of the basic tenets of the Standard Model — our best theory of particles and forces — which suggests the possibility of new fundamental particles and forces.
at the moment, More measurements By physicists at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, they found a similar effect, strengthening a new case for physics.
“The fact that we saw the same effect that our colleagues saw in March definitely raises the possibility that we really are on the verge of discovering something new.” – Harry Cliff
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The Standard Model describes all the known particles that make up the universe and the forces that interact with them. It has passed every experimental test so far, but physicists know it must be incomplete. It does not include the force of gravity, and cannot explain how matter was produced during
As a result, physicists have long searched for physical signatures outside the Standard Model that could help us solve some of these mysteries.
One of the best ways to find new particles and forces is to study the particles known as beauty quarks. These are the odd cousins of the upper and lower quarks that make up each other’s nuclei
Beauty quarks don’t exist in large numbers around the world because they are so short-lived – they live an average of only a trillionth of a second before changing or decaying into other particles. However, billions of beauty quarks are produced every year by CERN’s giant particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider, which are recorded by a special detector called the LHCb.
LHCb Experimental Cave at LHC- IP 8. Credit: CERN
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The way beauty quarks decay can be influenced by the presence of undiscovered forces or particles. In March, a team of LHCb physicists released results showing evidence that beauty quarks break down into particles called muons less frequently than their lighter counterparts, electrons. It is impossible to explain this in the Standard Model, which treats electrons and muons identically, despite the fact that electrons are about 200 times lighter than muons. As a result, beauty quarks must decay into muons and electrons at the same rate. In contrast, LHCb physicists found that muon decay occurs only about 85% more often than electron decay.
The difference between the LHCb and Standard Model results is about three units of experimental error, or “3 sigma” as it is known in particle physics. This means that there is only a one-in-a-thousand possible outcome due to statistical odds.
Assuming the results are correct, the most likely explanation is that the new force attracting electrons and muons with different forces interferes with how these beauty quarks decay. However, to ascertain whether the effect is real, more data is needed to reduce experimental error. Only when the results reach the “5 sigma” threshold, when there is a less than one in a million chance of it being random coincidence, will particle physicists begin to regard it as a real discovery.
“The fact that we saw the same effect that our colleagues saw in March certainly raises the possibility that we really are on the verge of discovering something new,” said Dr. Harry Cliff of Cavendish Laboratories. “It’s good to shed more light on mysteries.”
Today calendar Examine two new decaying beauty quarks from the same decay family as those used in the Martian results. The team found the same effect – muon decay only occurs about 70% when electrons decay. This time the error is larger, meaning the deviation is close to “2 sigma”, which means there is a slightly more than 2% chance of being the result of a statistical flaw in the data. While the findings themselves are not conclusive, they add further support to the growing pile of evidence that new fundamental forces are waiting to be discovered.
Professor Val Gibson said: “Excitement is building at the Large Hadron Collider as upgraded LHCb detectors will launch and collect more data that will provide the statistics needed to claim or disprove the major discovery.” Cavendish Laboratory.
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