The high-energy physics blogosphere (well, two blogs worth) is abuzz this morning with the news that the CDF collaboration has seen something in collisions producing multiple muons (a muon is sort of like an electron, only heavier). You can get more from Tommaso Dorigo and Peter Woit.
What they're really seeing is not entirely clear. They see more of these collisions that produce multiple muons than they can explain with the Standard Model, but it's not clear what that means at this point. It could be some exotic particle, or it could just be a new and interesting background effect in their detector.
This won't be sorted out for quite some time. The only way to really resolve this is to see if the other detector at Fermilab, the D0 detector, sees the same sort of thing in their data. This requires a long and complicated analysis, though, so expect this to be hanging out there tantalizingly for the next several months.
At least, that's my impression based on a somewhat groggy reading of this morning's blog posts. Anybody who knows more is encouraged to leave a comment, preferably with as little jargon as possible.
Physical Science
Comments
Massive overreaction by the blogosphere (what else is new?).
Posted by: onymous | October 31, 2008 9:49 AM
The shortest route from funding to discovery is budget crisis.
Posted by: Uncle Al | October 31, 2008 11:36 AM
Feynman's blackboard, as I saw myself, had at his death, a "do not erase" box with the letter Mu (for muon) and "Who ordered this?"
Posted by: Jonathan Vos Post | October 31, 2008 2:59 PM
Hi Chad, thanks for the link and the post.
uncle's comment makes me LOL. This is a paper that fought hard to get out, with the authors having to face a massive opposition. You can see it from the fact that of 600 usual authors, it has 400 signatures. Thinking it is an attempt to seek attention by the media is understandable, but the opposite of truth.
onymous is saying the blogosphere overrreacts, but he leaves comments everywhere (at my blog and woit's). The truth is that nobody has an explanation for the observed effect which stands. It may be correlated punch-through, can't it ? Well, surely it can, but there is no evidence it is that. It might be secondary nuclear interactions in the detector material, can't it ? Sure, but nothing seems to indicate it should only happen in the experimental situation which evidences the signal. It might be noise. It might be this, or that. But there is no proof.
Mind you, I believe it is not new physics. But that does not mean it is not extremely interesting. It is.
Cheers,
T.
Posted by: a quantum diaries survivor | October 31, 2008 4:37 PM
Obviously this result remains to be confirmed. Saying that a particle exists not accounted for by the Standard Model is so crazy sounding, that my gut reaction is it probably is just a artifact of caused in the detector.
That said, if this result holds up, this isn't "ho hum, they discovered a new particle," it's that they found a particle that the Standard Model does not predict. It would be somewhat akin to finding a new planet in a stable rectangular orbit. Many particles have been discovered over the past 30-40 years, but each and every one of them was predicted by the Standard Model before it was found. *Every* particle that we know exists is on that model...but not this one. The Standard Model has been beyond successful.
Again, if the result holds up, it will be the first direct proof that the Standard Model is incomplete. The result is definitely worthy of some attention.
Posted by: Kurt | October 31, 2008 5:21 PM
"Feynman's blackboard, as I saw myself"
... Jonathan Vos Post, you know and have known famous people. We get it.
FYI: not every blog posting is designed as an invitation for you drop the "big names" that you've met.
Posted by: irritated | November 1, 2008 11:45 AM
# 6 | irritated:
You're right. I apologize to you, and your fellow sufferers, by dropping the name of people whom I not just met but with whom I've coauthored, or who have led me to where I am today in Science and communicating the wonders of science in major media and the blogosphere, and to Chad who's suggested discretion on this subject this to me in the past.
I forgot.
And I am intrigued by any mystery made of muons.
Headline:
"Mystery Made of Muons -- Scientists Baffled!"
Posted by: Jonathan Vos Post | November 1, 2008 1:32 PM
They've discoverd some new mew-ons? There is a Ceiling Cat, and there are miracles! w00t!
=^..^=
Posted by: Mad Hussein LOLScientist, FCD | November 2, 2008 11:09 PM