Fermilab’s CDF experiment has recently announced a measurement of the mass of the W boson with unprecedented precision. Even more interesting, the measurement disagrees with theoretical predictions. If confirmed, this could be a very big deal. In this video, Fermilab’s Don Lincoln gives a far-ranging explanation of the measurement and its significance.
From WIRED, April 18, 2022: A collaboration of over four hundred scientists, hundreds of measurements and a 0.1 percent too heavy W boson have led to a tiny discrepancy in the Standard Model theory that could be a huge shift in fundamental physics.
From AZO Quantum, April 11, 2022: The W boson, one of nature’s force-carrying particles, has been detected by the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF) team, which includes 400 scientists from across the world.
From Pour la Science, April 11, 2022: A new measurement of the mass of the W boson is higher than predicted by the Standard Model. Is this a sign of new physics? For experts in the field, this conclusion would be premature. But this result is nevertheless very interesting as one of the most difficult measurements in physics.
For the Muon g-2 experiment, researchers create billions of muons to study their surprising properties.
From Gizmodo, April 7, 2022: A collaboration of 400 researchers have precisely measured the mass of the W boson and to their surprise found that the boson is more massive than predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics. All the data was collected from experiments at the four-story-tall, 4,500-ton Collider Detector (CDF-II for short) at Fermilab’s Tevatron accelerator.
Scientists of the Collider Detector at Fermilab collaboration have achieved the most precise measurement to date of the mass of the W boson, one of nature’s force-carrying particles. The measured value shows tension with the value expected based on the Standard Model of particle physics.
When a theory breaks, you learn how to build it better.
The Standard Model is one of the most well-tested theories in particle physics. But scientists are searching for new physics beyond it.
From The Hamden Journal, January 16, 2022: With the Standard Model explaining the fundamental physics of how the universe works, experimental physicists are constantly probing for cracks in the model’s foundations. So far, it has remained the model of fundamental physics despite many experiments in 2021 that probed the Standard Model 2021 like Muon g-2.