Standard Model

Researchers from more than 50 countries collaborate with Fermilab to develop state-of-the-art technologies and solve the mysteries of matter, energy, space and time. Take a look at 10 ways Fermilab and its partners advanced science and technology in 2021.

Building experimental evidence suggests that the electron, muon and tau may feel different forces.

From Universe Today, November 5, 2021: Neutrinos might make up a small portion of dark matter, but most dark matter must be something else. Because neutrinos are so close to satisfying the properties of dark matter, some scientists have argued dark matter might be a yet undiscovered variety known as sterile neutrinos.What did Fermilab’s newest experiment MicroBooNE see?

From Le Scienze (France), November 4, 2021: The preliminary analysis of three years of data from the MicroBooNE experiment show no signs of the existence of a fourth type of neutrino. The standard model of particle physics remains confirmed but it has not excluded clues to exotic physical phenomena may emerge.

From Scientific American, November 4, 2021: Physicists have wondered if neutrino particles come in a mysterious fourth variety. Now new experimental findings complicate the question. Physicists have wondered if neutrino particles come in a mysterious fourth variety. The MicroBooNE experiment findings announced last week by Fermilab heightened the mystery of why too many particles showed up in a detector during an experiment on the 1990s.

From Forbes, October 27, 2021: Fermilab’s Don Lincoln discusses the journey of the hypothetical sterile neutrino and the results of the MicroBooNE experiment hosted at Fermilab. Have sterile neutrinos been ruled out?

From the BBC, October 27, 2021: Yesterday, the MIcroBooNE collaboration opened a new chapter in physics with the announcement of their results; the search failed to find the particle, known as the sterile neutrino.

Four complementary analyses by Fermilab’s MicroBooNE show no signs of a theorized fourth kind of neutrino known as the sterile neutrino. Its existence is considered a possible explanation for anomalies seen in previous physics experiments.

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 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.