Fermilab's CDF Result Sparks Rumors of New Physics
November 4, 2008 by Lisa Zyga
The CDF detector at Fermilab. Credit: Fermilab.
(PhysOrg.com) -- Where are the muon-muon pairs coming from?
That's the question that has been consuming the blogs of physicists and others since late last week. Intrigued by a new study published by Fermilabīs CDF collaboration at arxiv.org, scientists are speculating - with great caution - that unusual muon-muon observations could point to physics beyond the Standard Model.
Although more information will surely follow in the coming weeks, the gist of the excitement is this: When observing decay events that produce a b meson and anti-meson (b-bbar) pair, which has a lifetime of about a picosecond, physicists found something unexpected in the background. When further investigating the background, the physicists discovered several surprises.
Among the unusual properties of the events is the production of an anomalously high number of muon pairs. In 300,000 events, about 70,000 contained more muons than expected, which cannot be attributed to statistical fluctuation. According to Peter Woit, a mathematician at Columbia University, on his blog "Not Even Wrong,", "One gets what one would expect to see from the decay of a new, unknown particle with a lifetime of about 20 picoseconds." However, the paper doesnīt propose a new particle, and itīs still too early to do more than speculate on the cause.
"The exciting possibility here is that a new, relatively long-lived particle has been observed, one that decays in some way that leads to a lot more muons than one gets from Standard Model states," Woit wrote. "It should be remembered though that this is an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence, and the possibility remains that this is some sort of background or detector effect that the CDF physicists have missed. It should also be made clear that this paper is not a claim by CDF to have discovered a new particle, rather it is written up as a description of the anomalies they have found, leaving open the possibility that these come from some standard model processes or detector characteristics that they do not yet understand."
The observation and its implications are so puzzling that only about two-thirds of the 600 CDF physicists chose to attach their names to the publication, called "Study of multi-muon events produced in p-pbar collisions at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV," which is submitted to Physical Review D. According to the blog of Tommaso Dorigo, CDF physicist, the authors wanted to publish it soon because of a legitimate concern that the news had started to leak out. Yet some CDF scientists wanted more analysis before publishing, so they left their names off the paper.
While the original paper didnīt offer an explanation for the signal, a second publication that appeared on arxiv a few days later, authored by seven CDF physicists, offers a possible explanation. As Woit noted, the multi-muon anomaly has already generated three conjectural explanations of the physics behind the signal, and "undoubtedly many, many more are on the way."
Dorigo said that one thing that makes this observation so unusual is that not even alternative theories of new physics have predicted such a signal. "As far as I understand, no existing model of new physics predicted such a signature in advance, although one must acknowledge that a few ideas exist in the literature which might have a connection with the effect, if proven real."
Fermilabīs other detector, D0, will likely perform similar searches for the unusual muon-muon signal. Even though D0 has a very good muon system, analyzing the data could still take a while.
Whether or not this particular result proves to lead toward something new, it offers some unexpected excitement while the new LHC undergoes repair until next spring. Itīs one of the most exciting results to emerge from particle physics in a while, and suggests that the LHC, when it does start collecting data, could find some very interesting things.
More information:
Original paper: Study of multi-muon events produced in p-pbar collisions at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV
Second paper: Phenomenological interpretation of the multi-muon events reported by the CDF collaboration
Peter Woitīs blog "Not Even Wrong"
Tommaso Dorigoīs blog "A Quantum Diaries Survivor"
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I offer this insight.
Even if there is such a thing as an "elementary" particle or wave, the scale of such an entity may be so very small that the so-called "elementary" particles observed in atoms and accelerators are nothing more than random amalgamations of said particle.
A muon may be made up of billions of some of "googlons" so tiny that nothing we can possibly imagine would detect them.
Scroll to the bottom of this linked page to see the humor in particle physics.
http://www.blazel...flaw.asp
The "laws of physics" at the sub-atomic level may indeed behave more like an object oriented program than classical physics.
in goes a variable, out comes the output, and the output can be more or less than the variable.
If you factor a prime number, say 13, you get factors 1 and that prime number, in this case 13.
One might say, "Well, I gained a 1."
As an analogy, viewing the digits as objects in and of themselves.
On the other hand, multiplying 13 x 1 = 13.
You might say, "I lost a 1."
Thus, at the sub-atomic scale, the universe may be multiplicative, instead of additive.
Scientist look for reactions Particle A Particle B = Particle C energy.
But what if such reactions do not actually occur?
What if what is really happening is Particle A * Particle B, or Particle A dot Particle B, or Particle A cross Particle B.
This "out of the box" way of looking at things is probably totally wrong, but it is something that occurs to me.
Analogy 2:
Consider the possibility that energy and mass behave more like a surface area rather than a linear value or a volume.
If you have two cubes, each having volume v = X^3 and surface area s = 6x^2, what happens if you "Add" them together by stacking?
Well, your total volume remains the same v = 2x^3.
But your surface area of the cubes, s = 12x^2, is not "conserved" in the new object, the stack, s = 10x^2...
Similarly, "Stacking" two higher dimensional objects may result is an apparant gain or loss of "surface volume" (i.e. energy or mass). In reality, nothing has been "gained" or "lost", it is simply "hidden" much like the surface area of the two cubes are hidden in the stack.
Finally, there is Ontology.
Suppose "mathematics" and "Topology" cannot actually describe the universe.
Hebrews 11:3
Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
Nov 04, 2008
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You may well be correct. The big P and the big V universes combine to make ours but you need to relax a little.
Besides we are looking to find out where these excess muons came from.
Nov 04, 2008
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and to help you answer your question man. they come from the universe man!
Nov 04, 2008
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Ah yes. See my post above. A muon could be as simple as a "surface" of a "cube" in hyperdimensional space-time. When you "unstack" two "cubes", you "increase" the surface area of the system, manifested as "new" muons which had previously been "hidden" in the stack.
This is, of course, pure conjecture, but it makes at least as much sense as any of the "physical" models these crackpot "scientists" are going to present.
Nov 04, 2008
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Hebrews 11:3
"Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. "
Very interesting quote. The author distinguishes between "things that appear" like ghosts and visons that i interpret as psychic phenomena created by the human mind or psyche and things that are real like a rock you trip on.
He (an apostle?) posits that the psychic world of visons is qualitatively different from the world of real things; The mind vs. matter duality that Eccl es and so many other modern philosophers talk about. This ancient writer had an outlook on reality that seems to be the same as Descartes and others of the age of enlightenment and onward. I had always assumed that people in that age believed that visions and ghosts were as real as trees or the red sea.
Nov 04, 2008
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"you have to take this on faith because we have no way of proving that the world of the psyche is really less substantial than the world we call real."
Nov 04, 2008
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I have to disagree somewhat,... To describe the universe, ...for it to be intelligible at all, necessarily involves an observer. To "know" reality means that it has been subjected to conditions of understanding given our mental design. In processing experience we have a-priori functions or modes under which reality is made to conform, if it is to be known. In other words the mind has a certain and limited design, a way of functioning, which therefore dictates conditions of possible experience and knowledge.
So I disagree a little with QuantumC, ...we can always describe reality within these intellectual paradigms, say with mathematics, cause and effect, time,... and this will be the entire subset of reality known in principal to us.
The interesting unanswerable question is, ...is this the whole of reality? Is there a noumenal reality apart from the observer-entangled phenomenal reality?
Nov 04, 2008
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You should read Exodus and also Hebrews and Romans.
Descartes probably got most of his ideas from the Bible.
Essentially, almost the entire book of Romans takes this form. Paul often makes a point by beginning "as the fool" rejecting the reality of the gospel and then proves the reality of the gospel from a stance of doubt. This method of reason is basicly manifested in several ways in Pauls writings.
In Exodus, when Moses asks God "who do I say sent me?" God says, "Tell them 'I AM' has sent you." Jesus later called himself 'I AM', a direct claim to deity in the context of which he used it, which resulted in the pharisees and priests trying to stone him.
Descartes says, "I think, therefore I am".
The Bible says, "God spoke, therefore we exist."
But before anything was created, there was God and "sensory perception" would be meaningless to God 'before' anything was created. It is humorous that Jesus is called the "Word of God" in John's gospel.
"In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God...he made all things and without him was not anything made that was made....and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth..."
"Word" is greek Logos.
"Something said"
"Thought" or "expression of thought"
"Reasoning"
"Motive"
"Divine expression"
This is also the same word from which we get the "science" suffix "-ology" or "-logy" and the word "logic".
But the verse really is saying that everything was quite literally made out of nothing.
How? I don't know. But ultimately, everything in the universe started as a figment of God's imagination.
Are we corporeal, are we seperate entities from God? I personally believe so for one reason, which is that everything God did seems to have been that which was hardest to do. It may not matter ultimately, but I believe we are corporeal beings in a corporeal universe created by God. "Before" the creation of hte universe, there was nothing and noone except God himself.
As an example of what I mean by, "Everything God created seems to be the hardest possible thing".
How does one measure the power of an eternal God? Well, God created the universe, and the worst possible problem happened: Lucifer chose to rebell against God, and ultimately tempted humanity to do the same. This is the worst possible problem in ANY possible universe, i.e. a creation that rejects its creator, and that creator's own righteousness forbids him to save or forgive humanity on any basis other than death without violating their free will. Worst possible problem for an all knowing, all loving God. The only solution was for him to allow himself to be murdered by his own creation, and die in our place, and he did that.
This represents the ultimate act of humility in that an all powerful being would beome a mere mortal and die a sinner's death. It represents the ultimate act of mercy and love, and it represents the ultimate power of the creator of the universe, in that he is so powerful he solved the worst possible problem of any possible creation he could have made: "The wages of sin is death."
Indeed, but the second half of the verse is the solution, "But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
Nov 05, 2008
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Jesus tap-dancing Christ
Nov 05, 2008
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At first I thought I wanted whatever velvetpink was on. As I read on I decided it would be ill advised to subject myself to that which inspires his rants.
Nov 09, 2008
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Schroedinger understood the requirements of particle structure when he wrote in 1937: "What we observe as material bodies and forces are nothing but shapes and variations in the structure of space. Particles are just 'Schaumkronen'. ('Schaum' means foam, 'Krone' means crest).
I am the author of Siedle's Supermassive Aether Theory - obviously unpublished. I postulate matter isn't physically present, rather, a manifestation of the interference pattern created by waves in the medium of 'existence' I begrudgingly call Aether.
Please contact me. Help me get this idea to the big guys. siedletc yah
Nov 18, 2008
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