Hey there’s yet one more anomaly in particle physics. You’ve gotten most likely seen the headlines, one thing with the mass of a type of particles known as a W-boson. And supersymmetry is as soon as once more the alleged rationalization. How severely do you have to take this? And why are particle physicists continuously speaking about supersymmetry, hasn’t that been dominated out? That’s what we’ll discuss at this time.
Final time I talked about an anomaly in particle physics was a couple of months in the past and would you already know two weeks later it disappeared. Sure, it disappeared. Should you keep in mind there was one thing bizarre happening with the neutrino oscillations in an experiment known as LSND, then a follow-up experiment known as Mini-Boone confirmed this, after which they improved the accuracy of the follow-up experiment and the anomaly was gone. Poof, finish of story. No extra neutrino anomaly.
You’d suppose this could’ve taught me to not get enthusiastic about anomalies however, ha, know me higher. Now there’s one other experimental group that claims to have discovered an anomaly and naturally we’ve to speak about this. This one really isn’t a brand new experiment, it’s a brand new evaluation of information from an experiment that was discontinued greater than 10 years in the past, a particle collider known as the Tevatron at Fermilab in america. It reached collision energies of a few Tera electron volt, Tev for brief, therefore the identify.
The information have been collected from 2002 to 2011 by the collaboration of the CDF experiment. Throughout that point they measured about 4 million occasions that contained a particle known as the W-boson.
The W-boson is among the particles in the usual mannequin, it’s a type of that mediate the weak nuclear pressure. So it’s just like the photon, nevertheless it has a mass and it’s extraordinarily short-lived. It actually solely reveals up in particle colliders. The worth of the mass of the W-boson is expounded to different parameters in the usual mannequin which have additionally been measured, so it isn’t an unbiased parameter, it has to suit to the others.
The mass of the W-boson has been measured a couple of instances beforehand, you’ll be able to see a abstract of these measurements on this determine. On the horizontal axis you’ve gotten the mass of the W-boson. The gray line is the expectation if the usual mannequin is appropriate. The purple dots with the error bars are the outcomes from totally different experiments. The one on the backside is the end result from the brand new evaluation.
One factor that pops into your eye straight away is that the imply worth of the brand new measurement isn’t so totally different from earlier information analyses. The putting factor about this new evaluation is the small error bar. That the error bar is so small is the rationale why this end result has such a excessive statistical significance. They quote a disagreement with the usual mannequin at 6.9 sigma. That’s effectively above the invention threshold in particle physics which is usually considerably arbitrarily put at 5 sigma.
What did they do to get the error bar so small? Effectively for one factor they’ve numerous information. However in addition they did numerous calibration cross-checks with different measurements, which mainly means they know very exactly the best way to extract the bodily parameters from the uncooked information, or at the very least they suppose they do. Is that this cheap? Sure. Is it appropriate? I don’t know. It may very well be. However in all honesty, I’m very skeptical that this end result will maintain up. Extra probably, they’ve underestimated the error and their end result is definitely suitable with the opposite measurements.
But when it does maintain up, what does it imply? It will imply that the usual mannequin is mistaken as a result of there’d be a measurement that don’t match along with the predictions of the speculation. Then what? Effectively then we’d have to enhance the usual mannequin. Theoretical particle physicists have made many ideas for a way to try this, the preferred one has for a very long time been supersymmetry. It’s additionally one of many attainable explanations for the brand new anomaly that the authors of the paper talk about.
What’s supersymmetry? Supersymmetry isn’t a idea, it’s a property of a category of fashions. And that class of fashions could be very giant. These fashions have all in frequent that they introduce a brand new associate particle for every particle in the usual mannequin. After which there are often some extra new particles. So, in a nutshell, it’s much more particles.
What the predictions of a supersymmetric mannequin are relies upon strongly on the plenty of these new particles and the way they decay and work together. In follow this implies no matter anomaly you measure, you’ll be able to most likely discover some supersymmetric mannequin that can “clarify” it. I’m scare quoting “clarify” as a result of if you happen to can clarify all the pieces you actually clarify nothing.
That is why supersymmetry is talked about in a single breath with each anomaly that you simply hear of: as a result of you should utilize it to clarify just about all the pieces if you happen to solely strive exhausting sufficient. For instance, you could keep in mind the 4.2 sigma deviation from the usual mannequin within the magnetic second of the muon. Might it’s supersymmetry? Positive. Or what’s with this B-meson anomaly, that lingers round at 3 sigma and makes headlines a couple of times yr. Might that be supersymmetry? Positive.
Will we in any of those instances really *know that it must be supersymmetry? No. There are numerous different fashions you can fumble collectively that might additionally match the invoice. Actually, the brand new CDF paper in regards to the mass of the W-boson additionally mentions a couple of different attainable explanations: extra scalar fields, a second Higgs, darkish photons, composite Higgs, and so forth.
There’s actually 1000’s of these fashions, none of which has any proof getting in its favor. And instantly after the brand new outcomes appeared particle physicists have begun cooking up new “explanations”. Listed here are just some examples of these. By the point this video seems there’ll most likely be a couple of dozen extra.
However wait, you could surprise now, hasn’t the Massive Hadron Collider dominated out supersymmetry? Good level. Earlier than the Massive Hadron Collider turned on, particle physicists claimed that it might both affirm or rule out supersymmetry. Supersymmetry was allegedly a straightforward to search out sign. If supersymmetric particles existed, they need to have proven up just about instantly within the first collisions. That didn’t occur. What did particle physicists do? Oh abruptly they claimed that in fact this didn’t rule out supersymmetry. It’d simply dominated out sure supersymmetric fashions. So which model is appropriate? Did or didn’t the LHC rule out supersymmetry?
The reply is that the LHC certainly didn’t rule out supersymmetry, it by no means might. As I stated, supersymmetry isn’t a idea. It’s an enormous class of fashions that may be made to suit something. These physicists who stated in any other case have been both incompetent or mendacity or each, the remainder knew it however nearly all of them saved their mouth shut, and now they hope you’ll overlook about this and provides them cash for an even bigger collider.
As you’ll be able to most likely inform, I’m very not amused that the particle physics neighborhood by no means got here clear on that. They by no means admitted to having made false statements, unintentionally or intentionally, and so they by no means gave us any motive to suppose it wouldn’t occur once more. I fairly merely don’t belief them.
Didn’t supersymmetry have one thing to do with string idea? Sure, certainly. So what does this all imply for string idea? The transient reply is: nothing by any means. String idea requires supersymmetry, however the reverse just isn’t true, supersymmetry doesn’t essentially require string idea. So even within the unlikely occasion that we might discover proof for supersymmetry, this wouldn’t inform us whether or not string idea is appropriate. It will definitely increase confidence in string idea however finally wouldn’t assist a lot as a result of string theorists by no means managed to get the usual mannequin out of their idea, regardless of the occasional declare on the contrary.
I’m afraid all of this sounds fairly unfavorable. Effectively. There’s a motive I left particle physics. Particle physics has degenerated right into a paper manufacturing enterprise that’s of just about no relevance for societal progress or for progress in another self-discipline of science. The one motive we nonetheless hear a lot about it’s that numerous funding goes into it and so lots of people nonetheless work on it, most of them don’t like me. However the disciplines the place the foundations of physics at present make progress are cosmology and astrophysics, and all the pieces quantum, quantum data, quantum computing, quantum metrology, and so forth, which is why that’s what I principally discuss today.
The LHC has simply been upgraded and began working once more a couple of days in the past. Within the coming years, they may acquire much more information than they’ve to date and this might result in new discoveries. However when the headlines are available, understand that the extra information you acquire, the extra anomalies you’ll see, so it’s nearly assured they may see numerous bumps at low significance “that might break the usual mannequin” however then go away. It’s attainable in fact that a type of is the true factor, however to borrow a German idiom, don’t eat the headlines as sizzling as they’re cooked.
