Building experimental evidence suggests that the electron, muon and tau may feel different forces.
Muon g-2
From Science, November 29, 2021: Fermilab’s Muon g-2 result announcement is included in Science’s Annual People’s Choice Award listing of 2021 science breakthroughs. Place your vote through Dec. 6. On Thursday, 17 December, the winner of Science’s Breakthrough of the Year award will be announced. Vote today using twitter.
From Institute of Physics, November 29, 2021: Professor Mark Lancaster received the James Chadwick Medal from the Institute of Physics for his distinguished work of precise measurements in particle physics, particularly of the W boson mass and the muon’s anomalous magnetic moment in April 2021.
From Fuentitech, October 19, 2021: Physicists have long wondered if muons, electrons, and other leptons make a difference other than mass. The latest LHCb results suggest that the answer may be “yes” by revealing two minor anomalies that continue the strange pattern of “lost” muons shown in recent data from the LHCb. In April, the Muon g-2 experiment at Fermilab also found a discrepancy from the Standard Model but future results may also shed light on these differences.
From The Naked Scientists, October 12, 2021: Scientists at Fermilab may have uncovered something in muons beyond our understanding-an interview with Fermilab’s Brendan Casey on Muon g-2 and the magnetic strength of muons, their strange behavior, and how they could change our understanding of the universe.
From Medill Reports, September 30, 2021: Researchers transported a gigantic electromagnetic ring from Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island to Fermilab near Chicago eight years ago in the search for a new building block of matter. While it wasn’t the secret spaceship bystanders thought it was, it did allow scientists to explore fundamental questions about our universe.
From Inverse, Sept. 28, 2021: Suspect number one at the center of the particle-filled mystery? The humble muon.
Scientists at CERN began studying the magnetism of muons in the 1950s, but in the 1990s this research moved stateside, first to Brookhaven National Laboratory in Long Island until 2001 and now to Fermilab.
From Scientific American, September 14, 2021: Fermilab theorist Marcela Carena writes about the ever changing behavior of muons and the first result of the Muon g-2 experiment that suggested muons were not acting as current theory prescribes in an article titled, “Weird muons may point to new particles and forces of nature,” posted in Scientific American.
Fermilab physicist and Muon g-2 co-spokesperson Chris Polly has won a Falling Walls Award in physical sciences, which honors researchers doing groundbreaking work in the observation and understanding of natural phenomena of the earth, atmosphere and space. Polly is being recognized for his contribution to the Muon g-2 collaboration. Its results earlier this year strengthened evidence of new physics beyond the Standard Model. He is also a finalist for Science Breakthrough of the Year 2021 in physical sciences.
Even experiments that aren’t looking for dark matter directly, such as Muon g-2, could give us hints about the mysterious substance that permeates our universe.