The new results from the LHCb experiment challenge breakthrough theory in physics

news/tmb/2021/newresultfro.jpg" data-src="https://scx2.b-cdn.net/gfx/news/hires/2021/newresultfro.jpg" data-sub-html="Very rare decay of a beauty meson involving an electron and positron observed at LHCb. Credit: Imperial College London">

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The LHCb collaboration at CERN found that particles do not behave properly according to the guidelines for particle physics theory – the Standard Model.

The Standard Model of particle physics predicts this biji-bijian Called beauty quarks, which are measured in the LHCb experiment, they must decay into muons or electrons in a balanced manner. However, the new results suggest that this may not be the case, which may indicate new particles or interactions not described by the Standard Model.

Physicists from Imperial College London and the Universities of Bristol and Cambridge led the analysis of the data to arrive at this conclusion, with funding from the Science and Technology Facility Council. The results are announced today at Moriond Electroweak Physics Conference And Published as a rough draft.

Beyond the Standard Model

The Standard Model is the best current theory in particle physics, explaining everything that is known Fundamental particles It makes up our universe and the forces with which it interacts.

However, the Standard Model is unable to explain some of the deepest mysteries of modern physics, including what Dark matter It consists of the imbalance of matter and antimatter in the universe.

So the researchers looked for particles that behaved differently than expected in the Standard Model, to help explain some of these mysteries.

“We were really shivering when we first saw the results, we were very excited. Our hearts beat faster, “said Dr. Mitch Patel, of the Imperial Physics Department and one of the leading physicists behind measurement.

“It’s too early to say whether this really is a deviation from the Standard Model, but the potential implications make this result the most exciting thing I’ve done in 20 years in the field. It’s been a long journey to get here. “

Natural composing materials

Today’s results were generated with the LHCb experiment, one of four massive particle detectors on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN).

The LHC is the world’s largest and most powerful particle collector – it accelerates subatomic particles to nearly the speed of light, before colliding with one another. These collisions produce new particle explosions, which physicists record and study to better understand nature’s basic building blocks.

This updated analogy wonders about natural laws that treat electrons and their heavier cousins, muons, symmetrically, except for minor differences due to different masses.

According to the Standard Model, muons and electrons interact with all forces in the same way, so the beauty quarks created at the LHCb have to decay into muons just as they do with electrons.

But these new measurements show that decay can occur at different rates, which could suggest that the unprecedented particles are reversing the scale of the muons.

Imperial Doctor. Student Daniel Moyes, who made the first announcement of the results at the Moriond Electroweak Physics conference, said: “These results provide interesting clues about new fundamentally new particles or forces interacting in ways unknown to particles currently known to science.

“If confirmed with further measurements, it will have profound effects on our understanding of nature at a fundamental level.”

Not a definite conclusion

In particles Physics, The gold standard for detection is five standard deviations – meaning there is a 1 in 3.5 million chance that the result is accidental. This result is three deviations – meaning that there is still a 1 in 1000 chance that the measurement is statistically coincidence. So, it is too early to reach any firm conclusions.

Dr. Michael McCann, who also played a leading role on the imperial team, said: “We know that there must be new particles to discover because our current understanding of the universe is getting shorter in many ways – we don’t know 95 percent of the universe is made of, or why. there is such an imbalance. There is a big difference between matter and antimatter, and we do not understand the pattern of properties of the particles that we do know.

“While we have to wait for these results to be confirmed, I hope that one day we look back at this as a turning point, when we start answering some of these fundamental questions.”

Now, the LHCb collaboration will have to further verify their findings by gathering and analyzing more data, to see if evidence for some of the new phenomena remains. The LHCb experiment is expected to start gathering new data next year, once the detectors are upgraded.

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