Forget the Higgs , there ’s a novel boson in town . At least , this is what is hinted at by the latest information come from theLarge Hadron Collider(LHC ) . The potential discovery has sent theoretic physicist into a frenzy , with nine papers explaining the information already uploaded onarXivhours after the results were present .
The LHC experiments ATLAS and CMS have both detected a protrusion in the information from the result follow the proton - proton collisions . Among the particles produced by the collisions , the experiment saw an excess of photon pairs ; this is usually an indication that there is a new particle .
The extrusion was see in 50 photon distich ( 40 in ATLAS and 10 in CMS ) and each pair had an energy of 750 gigaelectronvolts ( GeV ) . This indicate that the likely new particle is a boson ( but not necessarily like the Higgs ) and it has a mass equivalent to almost 800 protons . physicist are intrigued as they were n’t expecting anything with that peck .
Although this is very exciting , there is a lot more to do before this trace is proven to be a particle or just a co-occurrence . The low number of sleuthing fit to a downhearted statistical certainty . The ATLAS experiment has a assurance level of 99.99 percent ( 3.9 sigmas ) and CMS has a confidence stage of 98.9 percent ( 2.6 sigma ) . These values seem really high , but you’re able to see them as one in 10,000 and a bit more than one in 100 , respectively . You would n’t get in a aeroplane if those were the odds that it would come crash down .
New particles can only be confirmed if the confidence layer has reached5 sigmas(99.9999 percent ) , meaning the detection has only a one in 3.5 million chance of being a fluke . The LHC has finished operation for the year , so reaching the 5 sigma storey will be the goal of the auto in 2016 .
Several theoretic explanations have been put forward to explain the possible new atom . From dark thing to twine theory to some exotic version of the stock model of physics , the explanations are squeeze anything possible from the limited datum available .
However , the physicists working on ATLAS and CMS are being level - headed when it comes to the bump . mouth to IFLScience , Professor Dave Charlton , spokesperson for ATLAS , enunciate : " It is too early yet to think that we are seeing anything more than a statistical fluctuation , which is not unbelievable . "
He stay on : " I would rather not speculate on what it might be , if it is not just a chance happenstance – in the experiments , our Book of Job is rather to look severely at the data to see if there is more we can learn , and most especially to fix for the new data sample coming next year . This is what we are doing ! "
If these trace turn out to be a discovery , the world of corpuscle physics might not be the same . The LHC will be back online in March and physicists expect 10 times as much data next year . " If there is an actual natural phenomenon behind these fluctuations , we will make out , " Tiziano Camporesi , a CERN physicist and spokesperson for the CMS team , toldNature .
