Why is it so hard to find a new particle? (Synopsis)

"I often feel a discomfort, a kind of embarrassment, when I explain elementary-particle physics to laypeople. It all seems so arbitrary - the ridiculous collection of fundamental particles, the lack of pattern to their masses." -Leonard Susskind

When it comes to physics, there are a tremendous number of unsolved problems that seem to mandate the existence of a new particle. These include the dark matter problem, the matter-antimatter asymmetry problem, the massive neutrino problem and the strong-CP problem. Moreover, these particles required cannot be part of the Standard Model: they must lie beyond it.

Image credit: DESY at Hamburg. Image credit: DESY at Hamburg.

Yet not only have detectors and colliders failed to turn up anything new despite 50 years of searches, but most models that would solve these problems are theoretically doomed from the start. Constraints on what new physics could do from big bang nucleosynthesis and the lack of observed flavor-changing neutral currents forbid almost all of the theoretical models we can build.

Flavor-changing neutral current Feynman diagrams. Image credit: Physics Beyond the Single Top Quark Observation – D0 Collaboration (Heinson, A.P. for the collaboration) Nuovo Cim. C033 (2010) 117. Flavor-changing neutral current Feynman diagrams. Image credit: Physics Beyond the Single Top Quark Observation – D0 Collaboration (Heinson, A.P. for the collaboration) Nuovo Cim. C033 (2010) 117.

Come find out why finding a new particle -- or even modeling a potential new particle -- is so hard!

Tags

More like this

"Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?" -Stephen Hawking After a long search spanning more than my entire lifetime (so far), the Higgs boson has finally…
“I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way — things I had no words for.” –Georgia O’Keeffe The Standard Model is great at describing all the known particles we've ever observed and how they interact, but there are a number of important hints that it isn't…
“Supposedly she’d died, but here she was again–somewhat changed, but you couldn’t kill her. Not when the truest part of her hadn’t even been born.” -Denis Johnson Over the past 100 years, our picture of the Universe has changed dramatically, on both the largest scales and the smallest. Image…
"Other than the laws of physics, rules have never really worked out for me." -Craig Ferguson Earlier this week, evidence was presented measuring a very rare decay rate -- albeit not incredibly precisely -- which point towards the Standard Model being it as far as new particles accessible to…

Why is it so hard to find a new particle? It's probably been misfiled or lost between the couch cushions. Science is messy sometimes.

By Naked Bunny wi… (not verified) on 22 Dec 2015 #permalink

Scientists say that about 95% of the universe is made up of dark energy and dark matter. But is there any of the dark stuff on earth? If not, why not?

By See Noevo (not verified) on 22 Dec 2015 #permalink

@See Noknowledge #2: "On Earth"? You mean, "at rest with respect to the surface of the Earth"? No, probably not. There is, however, a constant stream of dark matter passing through the Earth, from all directions, at roughly 200-or-so km/s. If you can't figure out why, look up "virialization" and do the math yourself.

By Michael Kelsey (not verified) on 22 Dec 2015 #permalink

"But is there any of the dark stuff on earth? If not, why not?"

Do you know there isn't? If not why not?

And for anyone who hasn't been here for a week, POS here is a psycho stalker bitch.

I suggest you read the thread rather than just take that idiot's claims at face value.