Cern experiment hints at new force of nature!

Cern experiment hints at new force of nature

Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva have spotted an unusual signal in their data that may be the first hint of a new kind of physics.

The LHCb collaboration analysed 10 years of data on how unstable particles called B mesons, created momentarily in the vast machine, decayed into more familiar matter such as electrons.

The mathematical framework that underpins scientists’ understanding of the subatomic world firmly maintains that the particles should break down into products that include electrons at exactly the same rate as they do into products that include a heavier cousin of the electron, a particle called a muon.

But results released by Cern on Tuesday suggest that something unusual is happening. The B mesons are not decaying in the way the model says they should: instead of producing electrons and muons at the same rate, nature appears to favour the route that ends with electrons.

Ben Allanach, a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Cambridge, agrees that taken together with other findings, the latest LHCb result is exciting. “There could be a new quantum force that makes the B mesons break up into muons at the wrong rate. This force could help explain the peculiar pattern of different matter particles’ masses.”

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