From Big Think – Don Lincoln, May 26, 2023: The search for the smallest particles remains one of science’s greatest pursuits. By today’s measurements, quarks and leptons are the smallest known building blocks in nature, yet researchers wonder if perhaps quarks and leptons are built of even smaller things. Scientists and researchers continue to to look for smaller objects inside quarks and leptons using accelerators like CERN’s Large Hadron Collider.
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The Mu2e experiment at Fermilab will look for a never-before-seen subatomic phenomenon that, if observed, would transform our understanding of elementary particles: the direct conversion of a muon into an electron. An international collaboration of over 200 scientists is building the Mu2e precision particle detector that will hunt for new physics beyond the Standard Model.
Building experimental evidence suggests that the electron, muon and tau may feel different forces.
More than 3,500 researchers from around the world collaborate with Fermilab to develop state-of-the-art technologies and solve the mysteries of matter, energy, space and time. Here is a look at 10 ways Fermilab advanced science and technology in 2020.
The field of particle physics searches to find the explanation for the universe, focusing on the fundamental building blocks and most basic force that governs them. Our current best theory of the subatomic world is the Standard Model, which invokes quarks and leptons to build the cosmos. In this 13-minute episode of Subatomic Stories, Fermilab scientist Don Lincoln explores the idea that quarks and leptons might not be the final story.
The most familiar subatomic particle is the electron, which is a member of a class of particles called the charged lepton. In addition, there are two cousin particles, the muon and the tau lepton. In this nine-minute video, episode 3 of the Subatomic Stories series, Fermilab scientist Don Lincoln takes us on a whirlwind tour of these interesting particles and answers questions from previous videos.
With this six-minute video, Fermilab scientist Don Lincoln launches a special series called Subatomic Stories. You will learn a little bit about both the exciting subatomic world and the entire cosmos — and see how the two are inextricably linked. Each episode will focus on a specific topic, but the series will tell a much broader story.
Did the title make you think of powerful people and wonder who the second and third families are? This is a science corner, and these families are elementary particles.
The Standard Model allows for the Higgs boson to decay to identically flavored pairs of leptons, such as electrons and muons, but not to mixed pairings of lepton flavors. Evidence of the latter would be a sign of new physics.
Which directions do postcollision electrons take at the Large Hadron Collider, and how often do they go one way versus another? The answer gives a way to probe electroweak theory.