The Higgs boson is the only fundamental particle known to be scalar, meaning it has no quantum spin. This fact answers questions about our universe, but it also raises new ones.
Standard Model
The Standard Model is the best theory devised that describes most of the data taken in the quantum realm. It predicts that protons are stable. But what if the Standard Model is wrong? Could protons decay? In this video, Don Lincoln talks about why we think protons are stable and how we could be wrong.
From Big Think, Feb. 15, 2023: The Standard Model of Physics has been challenged by the Muon g-2 and W-boson measurements. Don Lincoln discusses a recent paper in the journal Nature Communications that attempted to resolve two significant discrepancies in particle physics.
For decades, scientists have tried to find a way to measure the mass of the lightest matter particle known to exist. Three new approaches now have a chance to succeed.
From Big Think, Jan. 10, 2023: While the Standard Model is the best theory available in modern physics to explain subatomic physics, it cannot explain why antimatter isn’t observed in nature or provide an explanation for dark matter and dark energy. Don Lincoln explains how recent measurements of muons and electrons are propelling the idea that there may be undiscovered laws of nature yet to discover.
From Live Science, Dec. 29, 2022: This past year proved successful for particle physics research. Read more about the eight projects identified by Live Science as the biggest and best physics stories of 2022 and how Fermilab was a part of two of them.
From New Scientist, Dec. 16, 2022: This year was another busy year in science and technology and New Scientist news editors’ have chosen some of the biggest scientific developments, discoveries and events in 2022. Included in this year’s selections is the April 2022 announcement of the mass of the W boson that used Fermilab’s Tevatron.
From the Universities Research Association, October 31, 2022: Brynn MacCoy is a physics doctoral candidate at the University of Washington and the Fall 2019 URA Visiting Scholar Program (VSP) Awardee. With an extension of URA assistance, MacCoy returned to Fermilab earlier this year allowing her to install the Minimally Intrusive Scintillating Fiber Detector.
From Scientific American, October 2022: For several decades after the invention of the Standard Model, several physics measurements suggest that novel particles and forces exist in the universe. This article was originally published and titled, “When Particles Break the Rules” and includes the combined results from the Fermilab g-2 experiment and the previous trial at Brookhaven that add up to a probability of less than 0.01 percent that this anomaly is a statistical fluke.
From Brookhaven National Laboratory, October 11, 2022: Brookhaven National Lab announced yesterday that two of their scientists who led the “E821 g-2” experiment at BNL from 1990 through 2004 received the APS’s 2023 W.K.H. Panofsky Prize in Experimental Particle Physics. William M. Morse and Bradley Lee Roberts received the honor for their leadership and technical ingenuity in achieving a measurement of the muon anomalous magnetic moment with a precision suitable to probe Standard Model.