Muon g-2

Here’s how physicists calculate g-2, the value that will determine whether the muon is giving us a sign of new physics.

From the Department of Energy, Aug. 11, 2020: Fermilab scientist Chris Polly shares his love of physics, the importance of muons, a short history of scientists’ quest to measure how the muon wobbles in a magnetic field, and his journey to becoming leader of the Muon g-2 experiment.

Cornell University postdoc David Sweigart has won the 2020 URA Thesis Award for his dissertation analyzing the first year’s data from Fermilab’s Muon g-2 experiment. His efforts in analyzing the anomalous precession frequency of the muon could help confirm or challenge the Standard Model of particle physics.

The discovery of the muon originally confounded physicists. Today international experiments are using the previously perplexing particle to gain a new understanding of our world.

An international team of theoretical physicists have published their calculation of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon. Their work expands on a simple yet richly descriptive equation that revolutionized physics almost a century ago and that may aid scientists in the discovery of physics beyond the Standard Model. Now the world awaits the result from the Fermilab Muon g-2 experiment.

From El Dia, May 18, 2020: Los esperados resultados del experimento Muon g-2 del Fermilab probablement proporcionarán algunas ideas sobre un área donde Modelo Estándar podría fallar.

From APS Physics, May 14, 2020: Particle physicists are faced with a growing list of anomalies — experimental results that conflict with the Standard Model but fail to overturn it for lack of sufficient evidence. These include the muon anomaly, which scientists on Fermilab’s Muon g-2 experiment are studying. Fermilab scientist Chris Polly is featured in this article.

From Gizmodo, May 4, 2020: Fermilab’s Muon g-2 experiment is featured in this piece on today’s biggest discoveries in physics, which come from huge collaborations of scientists working on enormous apparatuses.

From Argonne National Laboratory, May 5, 2020: Using Argonne’s supercomputer Mira, researchers have come up with newly precise calculations aimed at understanding a key gap between physics theory and measurements by the Muon g-2 experiment

From Gizmodo, Jan. 25, 2020: Physicists have found all of the particles and forces that the Standard Model describes, but there are still countless mysteries in the universe that the theory fails to explain. Various experiments are now probing the Standard Model for cracks, and this year, scientists hope to unveil a measurement from one of them, the Muon g-2 experiment, a measurement that might break from the theory.