Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara have discovered a phenomenon that can not fail under any fundamental assumption, which adheres to the Standard model of physics. This conclusion was made after scientists examined three separate experiments. Scientists are diligently and persistently worked to understand the physical world, to discover theories and principles, defining the principles of physical substance. So-called Standard model of physics includes all the laws and principles on the matter in all its shapes and sizes. The standard model applies even to particle physics. Or at least should.
Scientists from the University of California at Santa Barbara, along with colleagues from other institutions recently discovered a possible flaw in the Standard model, partly associated with a fundamental principle of lepton universality. Their discovery came from a study of data from three separate experiments conducted in the United States, Switzerland and Japan.
Before we dive into the details of a study published in the journal Nature, a little background. Lepton universality is the assumption about elementary particles called leptons, which are not subject to strong interactions. Presumably, lepton universality States that the interaction of these particles will be the same regardless of the difference in the masses and decay rate. In the three considered experiments appeared charged leptons, namely electrons, muons and heavier Tau.
All three experiments showed that Tau actually decay faster than predicted by the Standard model. A surprise for scientists that the data of the Swiss LHCb experiment at CERN, the BaBaR detector, SLAC National accelerator laboratory in California and the Belle experiment in Japan has called into question the universality of the lepton with four standard deviations. That is, the accuracy of these data is 99.95%, according to the USCB team.
“Tau-lepton is the key, because the electron and the muon has been well researched. Tau to study harder because they quickly disintegrate,” says Franco Sevilla in a press release USCB. “Now that physics are better able to study the Tau, we see that the universality of the leptons may not be performed, as required by the Standard model”.
Initial review of these results shows that in the Standard model of particle physics there really is a deviation. Therefore, to explain the peculiar behaviors of Tau particles requires a completely different physics model. New physics. To find her is not easy, because all the principles are often related to each other. Changing one can affect others.
Sevilla admits that while scientists are unsure of future developments. “We do not believe that the confirmation of these results will mean in the long term,” he says. “First, you need to make sure that they are correct, and then require additional experiments to understand the meaning.”
Physicists have found a possible breach in the Standard model
Ilya Hel