Heavy news: a new physics could be just over the horizon
One of the scientists who discovered the Higgs boson says that their team has found a flaw in our current best framework for the basic laws of the universe, the Standard Model of particle physics. It turns out the W boson is heavier than predicted.
“When the physics world finally saw the result on April 7, 2022, we were all surprised. Physicists measure elementary particle masses in units of millions of electron volts – shortened to MeV. The W boson’s mass came out to be 80,433 MeV – 70 MeV higher than what the Standard Model predicts it should be. This may seem like a tiny excess, but the measurement is accurate to within 9 MeV. This is a deviation of nearly eight times the margin of error. When my colleagues and I saw the result, our reaction was a resounding ‘wow!’”
The Standard Model has an astonishing track record: it predicted the existence of the W boson and Higgs boson before they were experimentally verified. But unless there’s a flaw in the analysis, we will need to update our model of the universe. In the author’s view: “There are unexplained particles or forces causing the upward shift in the W boson’s mass. […] there must be more physics waiting to be discovered beyond the Standard Model. “