Science
Related: About this forumTheorists perplexed by hints of unexpected new particle
Physicists may soon know if a potential new subatomic particle is something beyond their wildest dreams or if it exists at all.
Hints of the new particle emerged last December at the Large Hadron Collider. Theorists have churned out hundreds of papers attempting to explain the existence of the particle assuming its not a statistical fluke. Scientists are now beginning to converge on the most likely explanations.
If this thing is true, its huge. Its very different than what the last 30 years of particle physics looked like, says theoretical physicist David Kaplan of Johns Hopkins University.
The speculation was triggered by a subtle wiggle in data from two experiments, ATLAS and CMS, at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN (SN: 1/9/16, p. 7). The bump suggests a new particle that decays into two photons, but what that particle might be is unclear its properties dont line up with scientists expectations.
Im not aware of anybody whod predicted the existence of such a particle, says John Ellis of Kings College London. Theres a dish on the table that nobody can remember ordering.
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https://www.sciencenews.org/article/theorists-perplexed-hints-unexpected-new-particle
broiles
(1,367 posts)n2doc
(47,953 posts)Ferretherder
(1,446 posts)...and beyond!
Ready4Change
(6,736 posts)Seriously. The most exciting this isn't when you find what you are looking for. It's when you find something that you WEREN'T looking for. Just like this.
LiberalEsto
(22,845 posts)First it shimmies to the left
then it shimmies to the right
shakes it's sub-atomic booty
and turns around all right
n2doc
(47,953 posts)After Stef
MisterP
(23,730 posts)Duppers
(28,120 posts)PhD advisor at JHU.
lastlib
(23,236 posts)offspring of the God particle.....
greiner3
(5,214 posts)cstanleytech
(26,291 posts)to another and could this be evidence of that where its not actually a particle decaying into two protons rather its decaying into one but another proton from another universe is being let in at the same time?