…… looks excited

New LHC results suggest there’s a flaw in the standard model of physics

The discrepancy deals with a particle called the B meson. According to the standard model, B mesons should decay at very specific angles and frequencies – but those predictions don’t match up what’s been seen in LHC experiments, suggesting that something else is going on. And if we can figure out what that is, it’ll take us closer to unlocking some of the mysteries in our Universe.

“Up to now all measurements match the predictions of the standard model,” said lead researcher Mariusz Witek, from the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences. “However, we know that the standard model cannot explain all the features of the Universe. It doesn’t predict the masses of particles or tell us why fermions are organised in three families. How did the dominance of matter over antimatter in the universe come about? What is dark matter? Those questions remain unanswered.”

According to the standard model, B mesons are made up of a light quark and a heavy beauty antiquark – and because of that quark-antiquark pairing, they decay rapidly, and should shoot their products off at specific angles.

While physicists had already noticed something odd about the timing of that decay, they weren’t able to pick up the discrepancy in the decay angle, because their method of measuring it wasn’t accurate enough.

But thanks to a new technique developed by the Polish physicists, they were able to show that not only did B mesons in 2011 decay at an angle that wasn’t predicted by the standard model, the same thing also happened in 2012.

Reshaping physics seems to be an on going process.

No.

CrazyNeutrino said:

Reshaping physics seems to be an on going process.

I’m guessing if this is confirmed it will probably be connected to a possible island of stability mollwollfumble has referenced recently.

sibeen said:

No.

If this conjectured island of stability is found how we do things might start to look a little different.

> The researchers are very clear that we can’t yet call this a discovery – we need more data before we can say for sure whether what’s been found is actually real. The team has currently reached a standard deviation of 3.4 sigma, which is pretty good, but to talk about a new discovery, they need to get above 5 sigma – which would mean there’s less than a one in 3.5 million chance that the discovery is a fluke.

If this is the peak I saw recently in LHC results, the significance is less than that. Imagine a graph with error bars on it. One point of 20 or so points on this graph deviated about this much from expectations. You would expect outliers like this in any statistical study. Further, thinking back to last year, there were seven or so situations like this, all with deviations from expectations too small to announce separately.

Let’s check the new one against what I saw recently. The one I’m thinking of was announced in a press release issued on 15 Dec. 2015.

Postpocelipse said:

sibeen said:

No.

If this conjectured island of stability is found how we do things might start to look a little different.

Would this island of stability exist naturally? and if so would it exist in significant quatities I wonder

Cymek said:

Postpocelipse said:

sibeen said:

No.

If this conjectured island of stability is found how we do things might start to look a little different.

Would this island of stability exist naturally? and if so would it exist in significant quatities I wonder

The feature referred to is a fusion density that shows possible stability within a limited range. I am still assessing information as it comes but I would not expect there to be a complete element involved. Possibly there are particles associated with managing mass or similar.

I agree with sibeen.

In fact it is the continuation of Physics as we know it.

The Rev Dodgson said:

I agree with sibeen.

In fact it is the continuation of Physics as we know it.

Well I didn’t word the title and didn’t pose it as a question. More interested in defining what this possible island of stability might be made of.