Scientists have announced 'intriguing' results today that potentially cannot be explained by the current laws of nature.
CERN, which operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world near Geneva in Switzerland, has detected 'gaps in our understanding of the universe'.
From Large Hadron Collider data, CERN has found particles not behaving how they should according to the guiding theory of particle physics – the Standard Model.
As the Standard Model goes, particles called 'beauty quarks' should decay into either 'muons' or 'electrons' in equal measure.
However, the new findings suggest this may not be happening, which could point to the existence of new particles or interactions not explained by the Standard Model.
New results from CERN have challenged the leading theory in particle physics – the Standard Model. The results were produced by the Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) experiment (pictured), one of four huge particle detectors at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC)
Physicists from Imperial College London and the universities of Bristol and Cambridge led the analysis of the data to produce this result, with funding from the Science and Technology Facilities Council, the UK government agency.
'We were actually shaking when we first looked at the results, we were that excited,' said Dr Mitesh Patel at Imperial College London, one of the leading physicists behind the measurement. 'Our hearts did beat a bit faster.
'It's too early to say if this genuinely is a deviation from the Standard Model but the potential implications are such that these results are the most exciting thing I've done in 20 years in the field.
The Standard Model describes all the known fundamental particles that make up our universe and the forces that they interact with.
Over the 20th century, it became established as a well-tested physics theory.
However, it cannot explain some of the deepest mysteries in modern physics, including what dark matter is made of and the imbalance of matter and antimatter in the universe.
To help solve some of these mysteries, researchers have been searching for particles behaving in different ways than would be expected in the Standard Model.
The results were produced by the Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) experiment, one of four huge particle detectors at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
The LHC is the world's largest and most powerful particle collider – it accelerates subatomic particles to almost the speed of light, before smashing them into each other.
Image shows the very rare decay of a beauty meson involving an electron and positron observed at LHCb=
These collisions produce a burst of new particles, which physicists record and study in order to better understand the basic building blocks of nature.
Researchers say the updated measurement questions the laws of nature that treat electrons and their heavier cousins – muons – identically, except for small differences due to their different masses.
The muon is an elementary particle similar to the electron but approximately 200 times heavier.
According to the Standard Model, muons and electrons interact with all forces in the same way, so beauty quarks created at LHCb should decay into muons just as often as they do to electrons.
However, these new measurements suggest the decays could be happening at different rates, which could indicate never-before-seen particles tipping the scales away from muons.
'The result offers an intriguing hint of a new fundamental particle or force that interacts in a way that the particles currently known to science do not,' said Imperial College London PhD student Daniel Moise, who made the first announcement of the results at the Moriond Electroweak Physics conference.
'If this is confirmed by further measurements, it will have a profound impact on our understanding of nature at the most fundamental level.'
In particle physics, the gold standard for discovery is five standard deviations – which means there is a one in 3.5 million chance of the result being a fluke.
This result is three deviations – meaning there is still a 1 in 1,000 chance that the measurement is a statistical coincidence, so it is therefore too soon to make any firm conclusions, the scientists say.
'We know there must be new particles out there to discover because our current understanding of the universe falls short in so many ways,' said Dr Michael McCann at Imperial College London., who also played a leading role.
'We do not know what 95 per cent of the universe is made of, or why there is such a large imbalance between matter and anti-matter, nor do we understand the patterns in the properties of the particles that we do know about.
'While we have to wait for confirmation of these results, I hope that we might one day look back on this as a turning point, where we started to answer to some of these fundamental questions.'
The deviation is consistent with a pattern of anomalies measured in similar processes by LHCb and other experiments worldwide over the past decade, according to CERN.
The result was announced at the Moriond Electroweak Physics conference and published as a pre-print paper, yet to be peer-reviewed.
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