Lepton Universality In Question, a Standard Model Assumption 62
Charliemopps writes: "Over the past few years, more and more experiments have started to question one of the core assumptions of the standard model: Lepton Universality. Simply put, the weak nuclear force is assumed to work equally on all Leptons (electron, muon and tau). Two years ago The Babar experimental collaboration reported that measurements indicated this may not have been the case. But the measurements were not accurate enough to be definitive.
Now, a report from The LHC shows that they have analyzed their entire dataset of proton-proton collisions and found a rather large discrepancy. These measurements are still not all that accurate. These decays happen so rarely that even with this huge data set there is still about a 1% change they are incorrect. One explanation for such measurements is an as-yet-undiscovered, charged Higgs particle. It would have to be extremely heavy: greater than 109GeV possibly even as high as 150GeV. This is predicted by some models outside of the Standard Model, like Supersymmetry."
Now, a report from The LHC shows that they have analyzed their entire dataset of proton-proton collisions and found a rather large discrepancy. These measurements are still not all that accurate. These decays happen so rarely that even with this huge data set there is still about a 1% change they are incorrect. One explanation for such measurements is an as-yet-undiscovered, charged Higgs particle. It would have to be extremely heavy: greater than 109GeV possibly even as high as 150GeV. This is predicted by some models outside of the Standard Model, like Supersymmetry."
Re:How convenient! (Score:4, Insightful)
Wan't the confirmation just slightly different from what they expected.
The deviation might actually be traces of this unknown 2nd Higgs particle.
Re:No Problem: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Particles are more unique than thought (Score:5, Insightful)
And that's the problem with applying pop logic to a fuzzy understanding of a vastly simplified description.
Modern quantum theory suggests not only that two examples of the same type of particle are not only completely identical except for certain features like position, but that even talking about particles as if they had individual existence doesn't really make sense.