
The First Particle Physics Evidence of Physics Beyond the Standard Model? 97
StartsWithABang writes It's the holy grail of modern particle physics: discovering the first smoking-gun, direct evidence for physics beyond the Standard Model. Sure, there are unanswered questions and unsolved puzzles, ranging from dark matter to the hierarchy problem to the strong-CP problem, but there's no experimental result clubbing us over the head that can't be explained with standard particle physics. That is, the physics of the Standard Model in the framework of quantum field theory. Or is there? Take a look at the evidence from the muon's magnetic moment, and see what might be the future of physics.
Neutrino Mass (Score:5, Informative)
I'm a bit biased, but consider finding non-zero neutrino mass (via neutrino oscillations) as the first "beyond the standard model" evidence. Slashdot carried that story in its infancy, way back in 1998.
Also worth pointing out that TFA is talking about an experiment in construction that hopes to push the g-2 result past 5 sigma. It's not there yet, although 4.something sigma is still pretty darn good. Just 14 years late to the party.
Re:Why gravity is treated as a force? (Score:5, Informative)
> Why do physicists insist on treating gravity as a force?
Because everything else works that way.
> Since Einstein, we know gravity is the curvature of space-time
No, since Einstein we know that Einstein's model is that gravity is the curvature of space-time.
Before Einstein, we thought it was a force between objects, or objects and a space-filling field.
There's no reason to suggest one model is inherently "more correct" than the other. Personally, I *like* the geometric model more, which almost certainly means it's wrong.
Re:Annoying header graphics (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why gravity is treated as a force? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:No, there is no evidence of BSM yet (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Neutrino Mass (Score:5, Informative)
The corrections to the muon g-2 experiment are now so high order that they involve QCD loops. These are non-perturbative and incredibly hard to calculate correctly so all a 5 sigma discrepancy may mean is that the theorists have got the calculation wrong. Indeed this has happened before with a 3 sigma g-2 'signal' going away after an error in the theory calculation was found by the student of one of my departmental colleagues.
If I show my bias then I would say that the best chance of new physics is the new LHC run starting in March 2015 where we have almost twice the energy of the previous run and higher luminosity. This should at least double the reach of the LHC for new physics over the next 3 years. After this run any sensitivity gains to new physics will come from increasing luminosity and so take far longer to achieve, perhaps giving one more doubling of the reach but over the next ~15 years and with a lot of work involved since the high luminosity LHC upgrade has incredible background rates!
Re:Annoying header graphics (Score:3, Informative)