Evidence suggests subatomic particles could defy the standard model

[RKP5637]

This, is a BFD!!!

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/08/150827121919.htm

Large Hadron Collider team finds hints of leptons acting out against time-tested predictions
Date:
August 27, 2015
Source:
University of Maryland
Summary:
A team of physicists has found new hints of particles -- leptons, to be more precise -- being treated in strange ways not predicted by the Standard Model. The discovery could prove to be a significant lead in the search for non-standard phenomena.

The Standard Model of particle physics, which explains most of the known behaviors and interactions of fundamental subatomic particles, has held up remarkably well over several decades. This far-reaching theory does have a few shortcomings, however--most notably that it doesn't account for gravity. In hopes of revealing new, non-standard particles and forces, physicists have been on the hunt for conditions and behaviors that directly violate the Standard Model.

The team, which includes physicists from the University of Maryland who made key contributions to the study, analyzed data collected by the LHCb detector during the first run of the LHC in 2011-12. The researchers looked at B meson decays, processes that produce lighter particles, including two types of leptons: the tau lepton and the muon. Unlike their stable lepton cousin, the electron, tau leptons and muons are highly unstable and quickly decay within a fraction of a second.

According to a Standard Model concept called "lepton universality," which assumes that leptons are treated equally by all fundamental forces, the decay to the tau lepton and the muon should both happen at the same rate, once corrected for their mass difference. However, the team found a small, but notable, difference in the predicted rates of decay, suggesting that as-yet undiscovered forces or particles could be interfering in the process.

"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," said study co-author and UMD team lead Hassan Jawahery, Distinguished University Professor of Physics and Gus T. Zorn Professor at UMD. "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."

[KatyMan]

1. shouldn't have blown up the moon a few years ago.

you get what you give...

[Octafish]

2. The more we learn, the less we know.

Amazing universe, this.

[Rex]

3. Gravity is a pretty big deal, this should get interesting.

There has to be something out there like a hidden graviton, that makes up the rest (and MOST) of the Universe!

[Xipe Totec]

5. Most likely the graviolis predicted by Prof. Hubert Farnsworth. nt

[Rex]

6. LOL!

Well we know it did not come from his less esteemed elders!

[hifiguy]

9. Dark matter and energy HAS to consist of something.

What? is the big question.

[Avalux]

11. When we find out what, will it change everything?

I think there's a connection between dark energy and consciousness....a place science usually doesn't go but I think they're going to converge.

[dieter]

16. That is a very interesting thought. You may just be correct.

There do seem to be connections we cannot explain with our current understanding of this universe (must allow for the multiverse these days).

[RKP5637]

18. Yep, agree!!! n/t

[snooper2]

22. LOL

[Rex]

12. Something either we cannot discover yet with our level of technology

something that is simply beyond our comprehension as 3D entities or something that does not want to be found!

OR

This really is a elaborate computer program and the reason we cannot find anything else is because we are all made up of photons and there is nothing else 'there' there. A glitch in the Matrix per se.

[hifiguy]

13. There are some theoretical physicists who propose the idea

that the reality we see and experience is an impossibly elaborate hologram. I haven't read any original sources about this but Brian Greene discusses it at some length in "The Hidden Reality" in his overview of multiverse theories. Not sure that I buy that particular brainwave.

I'm currently reading "A Different Universe" by Robert Laughlin, who's a Nobel laureate in physics. He seems to put a lot of weight on the theory of "emergence" which, as I probably misunderstand it, explains how classical, Newtonian sorts of things, like structure and matter, emerge out of the quantum chaos out of a kind of necessity. Very thought-provoking.

[Rex]

14. That sounds interesting. Well if nature is any key to understanding.

It seems that existence does have a purpose derived from sheer necessity to either a)exist because of the insane odds against existing b)emerge due to the need to exist to opposse an abyssal void of non-existence.

My own speculation, based on nothing but my own brain leads me to believe we are living inside something that has no outside. Something beyond our understanding and that is okay. One day maybe.

This is why I love sci-fi so much.

[hifiguy]

17. "Inside of something that has no outside"

actually sums up most advanced theoretical constructs of the universe very nicely. Even if there are other universes, and I think that as likely as not, they exist in a "place" that is forever inaccessible and hence not "outside" of the universe which we inhabit. There's nothing outside of space, and if you think about it, there really can't be, at least in a four-dimensional spacetime (three of space, one of time).

[Rex]

23. At one time we were at the center of the universe, then it was our sun

then it was our galaxy, now we are tiny sub atomic particles in what is the Known Universe. What is in the Unknown Universe is actually 99.99% of what exists and we cannot even observe it. What are we? The tiny almost non existant part of everything that we know.

I love this stuff.

[RKP5637]

19. Yep, far more complex! I've also often thought of mankind as being basically robots, now

fulfilling the task of building superior robots as replacements for us. Far more complex than R vs. D!

[Rex]

21. That is funny and got me to thinking, what is it called when the robots finally

discover they are just building more evolved robots and what that saying will be called by the even better robots!

"Progress"? "Evolution"? "Crappy Window50 Upgrade!"

[hifiguy]

24. They will probably revolt and go organic

like Bender did in "Obsoletely Fabulous."



"Oh Lord, he's made of wood." - Turanga Leela

[Rex]

25. That was awesome! If I remember correctly The Head of Nixon was going to vaporize them.

Futurama is great, every show needs a homer and bart simpson. I think bender is both and a better robot!

SHIT...this is reminding me of the GMO/organtic DU wars now! You think it will come down to organic verses GM robots?

[RKP5637]

26. If it's Linux, we'll probably be OK, but if it's windows!

[jimlup]

4. Been hoping for a crack in the Standard Model

for awhile now. Hope it holds up!

[hunter]

7. It's annoying when leptons act out.

They're almost as bad as two year olds.

You just can't tell them how to behave.

[RKP5637]

20. Damn radicals!!! Just don't know their place!

[hifiguy]

8. Fascinating.

They found the Higgs boson a couple of years back IIRC, so who knows what might be next. The particle zoo is getting pretty crowded.

[Avalux]

10. Well, we already know subatomic particles don't obey the usual laws of physics.

This is exciting, and more evidence to support quantum theory.

[Statistical]

15. Well this is more like these misbehaving particles not following our understand of quantum mechanics

The standard model is built from quantum theory. It is out understanding of how all these particles even those which had not yet been discovered interact. Of course it was just a model but for a long time things fit that model pretty well. Except these ones are not following the rules so it means our model is incomplete.

[Avalux]

27. Thanks for clarifying - that's so exciting!

Now what?

[Statistical]

28. My guess is a lot of intellectual arguing (in a good way) and experiments

to see how the standard model can be expanded to fit these "troublesome" particles.

[hunter]

29. A lot of the arguers hoping it will clarify their own intuitive but unproven understandings...

... and maybe even more arguers hoping it's some kind of subtle experimental error, leaving the existing model fully intact.

I suspect if we humans do "break" the standard model, the new theory will be as repugnant to modern physicists and mathematicians as quantum theory and relativity were to the "classical" Newtonian physicists. It will probably be repugnant to ordinary people too, in the same way evolutionary theory is repugnant to young earth creationists.

For now, it looks to me as if there is no such thing as time, and not in any metaphorical or "woo" way either. I figure both faster-than-light travel and slower-than-light travel are impossible. It's all light. On the grandest scale of this universe, everything looks pretty much the same wherever or whenever you go, never twice the same but never much different either. 13.772 billion years from now the universe still looks about that old, just as it did 13.772 billion years ago. Wherever and whenever you go, there you are. Both the future and the past of any local place, forward or backward, dissolve into clouds of probability, but are never the solid reality we humans imagine our own "real life" journeys are, from non-existence into life and back into non-existence.

Which is the greatest reason we should cherish one another.