CERN: Physics updates

MoEDAL zeroes in on magnetic monopoles

abelchio — Fri, 26 Apr 2024 08:45:58 +0000

MoEDAL zeroes in on magnetic monopoles

The MoEDAL detector (Image: CERN)

The late physicist Joseph Polchinski once said the existence of magnetic monopoles is “one of the safest bets that one can make about physics not yet seen”. In its quest for these particles, which have a magnetic charge and are predicted by several theories that extend the Standard Model, the MoEDAL collaboration at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has not yet proven Polchinski right, but its latest findings mark a significant stride forward. The results, reported in two papers posted on the arXiv preprint server, considerably narrow the search window for these hypothetical particles.

At the LHC, pairs of magnetic monopoles could be produced in interactions between protons or heavy ions. In collisions between protons, they could be formed from a single virtual photon (the Drell–Yan mechanism) or the fusion of two virtual photons (the photon-fusion mechanism). Pairs of magnetic monopoles could also be produced from the vacuum in the enormous magnetic fields created in near-miss heavy-ion collisions, through a process called the Schwinger mechanism.

Since it started taking data in 2012, MoEDAL has achieved several firsts, including conducting the first searches at the LHC for magnetic monopoles produced via the photon-fusion mechanism and through the Schwinger mechanism. In the first of its latest studies, the MoEDAL collaboration sought monopoles and high-electric-charge objects (HECOs) produced via the Drell–Yan and photon-fusion mechanisms. The search was based on proton–proton collision data collected during Run 2 of the LHC, using the full MoEDAL detector for the first time.

The full detector comprises two main systems sensitive to magnetic monopoles, HECOs and other highly ionising hypothetical particles. The first can permanently register the tracks of magnetic monopoles and HECOs, with no background signals from Standard Model particles. These tracks are measured using optical scanning microscopes at INFN Bologna. The second system consists of roughly a tonne of trapping volumes designed to capture magnetic monopoles. These trapping volumes – which make MoEDAL the only collider experiment in the world that can definitively and directly identify the magnetic charge of magnetic monopoles – are scanned at ETH Zurich using a special type of magnetometer called a SQUID to look for any trapped monopoles they may contain.

In their latest scanning of the trapping volumes, the MoEDAL team found no magnetic monopoles or HECOs, but it set bounds on the mass and production rate of these particles for different values of particle spin, an intrinsic form of angular momentum. For magnetic monopoles, the mass bounds were set for magnetic charges from 1 to 10 times the fundamental unit of magnetic charge, the Dirac charge (g_D), and the existence of monopoles with masses as high as about 3.9 trillion electronvolts (TeV) was excluded. For HECOs, the mass limits were established for electric charges from 5e to 350e, where e is the electron charge, and the existence of HECOs with masses ranging up to 3.4 TeV was ruled out.

“MoEDAL’s search reach for both monopoles and HECOs allows the collaboration to survey a huge swathe of the theoretical ‘discovery space’ for these hypothetical particles,” says MoEDAL spokesperson James Pinfold.

In its second latest study, the MoEDAL team concentrated on the search for monopoles produced via the Schwinger mechanism in heavy-ion collision data taken during Run 1 of the LHC. In a unique endeavour, it scanned a decommissioned section of the CMS experiment beam pipe, instead of the MoEDAL detector’s trapping volumes, in search of trapped monopoles. Once again, the team found no monopoles, but it set the strongest-to-date mass limits on Schwinger monopoles with a charge between 2g_D and 45g_D, ruling out the existence of monopoles with masses of up to 80 GeV.

“The vital importance of the Schwinger mechanism is that the production of composite monopoles is not suppressed compared to that of elementary ones, as is the case with the Drell–Yan and photon-fusion processes,” explains Pinfold. “Thus, if monopoles are composite particles, this and our previous Schwinger-monopole search may have been the first-ever chances to observe them.”

The MoEDAL detector will soon be joined by the MoEDAL Apparatus for Penetrating Particles, MAPP for short, which will allow the experiment to cast an even broader net in the search for new particles.

abelchio Fri, 04/26/2024 - 10:45

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Ana Lopes

Publication Date

Fri, 04/26/2024 - 10:24

Searching for new asymmetry between matter and antimatter

abelchio — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 09:41:56 +0000

Searching for new asymmetry between matter and antimatter

The LHCb detector seen in 2018 during its opening (Image: CERN)

Once a particle of matter, always a particle of matter. Or not. Thanks to a quirk of quantum physics, four known particles made up of two different quarks – such as the electrically neutral D meson composed of a charm quark and an up antiquark – can spontaneously oscillate into their antimatter partners and vice versa.

At a seminar held recently at CERN, the LHCb collaboration at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) presented the results of its latest search for matter–antimatter asymmetry in the oscillation of the neutral D meson, which, if found, could help shed light on the mysterious matter–antimatter imbalance in the Universe.

The weak force of the Standard Model of particle physics induces an asymmetry between matter and antimatter, known as CP violation, in particles containing quarks. However, these sources of CP violation are difficult to study and are insufficient to explain the matter–antimatter imbalance in the Universe, leading physicists to both search for new sources and to study the known ones better than ever before.

In their latest endeavour, the LHCb researchers have rolled up their sleeves to measure with unprecedented precision a set of parameters that determine the matter–antimatter oscillation of the neutral D meson and enable the search for the hitherto unobserved but predicted CP violation in the oscillation.

The collaboration had previously measured the same set of parameters, which are linked to the decay of the neutral D meson into a positively charged kaon and a negatively charged pion, using its full data set from Run 1 of the LHC and a partial data set from Run 2. This time around, the team analysed the full Run-2 data set and, by combining the result with that of its previous analysis, excluding the partial Run-2 data set, it obtained the most precise measurements of the parameters to date – the overall measurement uncertainty is 1.6 times smaller than the smallest uncertainty achieved before by LHCb.

The results are consistent with previous studies, confirming the matter–antimatter oscillation of the neutral D meson and showing no evidence of CP violation in the oscillation. The findings call for future analyses of this and other decays of the neutral D meson using data from the third run of the LHC and its planned upgrade, the High-Luminosity LHC.

Other neutral D meson decays of interest include the decay into a pair of two kaons or two pions, in which LHCb researchers observed CP violation in particles containing charm quarks for the first time, and the decay into a neutral kaon and a pair of pions, with which LHCb clocked the speed of the particle’s matter–antimatter oscillation. No avenue should be left unexplored in the search for clues to the matter–antimatter imbalance in the Universe and other cosmic mysteries.

Find out more on the LHCb website.

abelchio Thu, 04/11/2024 - 11:41

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Ana Lopes

Publication Date

Thu, 04/11/2024 - 17:00

ATLAS provides first measurement of the W-boson width at the LHC

abelchio — Wed, 10 Apr 2024 10:03:51 +0000

ATLAS provides first measurement of the W-boson width at the LHC

View of an ATLAS collision event in which a candidate W boson decays into a muon and a neutrino. The reconstructed tracks of the charged particles in the inner part of the ATLAS detector are shown as orange lines. The energy deposits in the detector’s calorimeters are shown as yellow boxes. The identified muon is shown as a red line. The missing transverse momentum associated with the neutrino is shown as a green dashed line. (Image: ATLAS/CERN)

The discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 slotted in the final missing piece of the Standard Model puzzle. Yet, it left lingering questions. What lies beyond this framework? Where are the new phenomena that would solve the Universe's remaining mysteries, such as the nature of dark matter and the origin of matter–antimatter asymmetry?

One parameter that may hold clues about new physics phenomena is the “width” of the W boson, the electrically charged carrier of the weak force. A particle’s width is directly related to its lifetime and describes how it decays to other particles. If the W boson decays in unexpected ways, such as into yet-to-be-discovered new particles, these would influence the measured width. As its value is precisely predicted by the Standard Model based on the strength of the charged weak force and the mass of the W boson (along with smaller quantum effects), any significant deviation from the prediction would indicate the presence of unaccounted phenomena.

In a new study, the ATLAS collaboration measured the W-boson width at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) for the first time. The W-boson width had previously been measured at CERN’s Large Electron–Positron (LEP) collider and Fermilab’s Tevatron collider, yielding an average value of 2085 ± 42 million electronvolts (MeV), consistent with the Standard-Model prediction of 2088 ± 1 MeV. Using proton–proton collision data at an energy of 7 TeV collected during Run 1 of the LHC, ATLAS measured the W-boson width as 2202 ± 47 MeV. This is the most precise measurement to date made by a single experiment, and — while a bit larger — it is consistent with the Standard-Model prediction to within 2.5 standard deviations (see figure below).

This remarkable result was achieved by performing a detailed particle-momentum analysis of decays of the W boson into an electron or a muon and their corresponding neutrino, which goes undetected but leaves a signature of missing energy in the collision event (see image above). This required physicists to precisely calibrate the ATLAS detector’s response to these particles in terms of efficiency, energy and momentum, taking contributions from background processes into account.

However, achieving such high precision also requires the confluence of several high-precision results. For instance, an accurate understanding of W-boson production in proton–proton collisions was essential, and researchers relied on a combination of theoretical predictions validated by various measurements of W and Z boson properties. Also crucial to this measurement is the knowledge of the inner structure of the proton, which is described in parton distribution functions. ATLAS physicists incorporated and tested parton distribution functions derived by global research groups from fits to data from a wide range of particle physics experiments.

The ATLAS collaboration measured the W-boson width simultaneously with the W-boson mass using a statistical method that allowed part of the parameters quantifying uncertainties to be directly constrained from the measured data, thus improving the measurement’s precision. The updated measurement of the W-boson mass is 80367 ± 16 MeV, which improves on and supersedes the previous ATLAS measurement using the same dataset. The measured values of both the mass and the width are consistent with the Standard-Model predictions.

Future measurements of the W-boson width and mass using larger ATLAS datasets are expected to reduce the statistical and experimental uncertainties. Concurrently, advancements in theoretical predictions and a more refined understanding of parton distribution functions will help to reduce the theoretical uncertainties. As their measurements become ever more precise, physicists will be able to conduct yet more stringent tests of the Standard Model and probe for new particles and forces.

Comparison of the measured W-boson width with the Standard-Model prediction and with measurements from the LEP and Tevatron colliders. The vertical grey band illustrates the Standard-Model prediction, while the black dots and the associated horizontal bands represent the published experimental results. (Image: ATLAS/CERN)

abelchio Wed, 04/10/2024 - 12:03

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ATLAS collaboration

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Wed, 04/10/2024 - 11:57

CERN pays tribute to Peter Higgs

cmenard — Wed, 10 Apr 2024 07:33:08 +0000

CERN pays tribute to Peter Higgs

Peter Higgs has passed away at the age of 94. An iconic figure in modern science, Higgs in 1964 postulated the existence of the eponymous Higgs boson. Its discovery at CERN in 2012 was the crowning achievement of the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics – a remarkable theory which explains the visible universe at the most fundamental level.

Alongside Robert Brout and François Englert, and building on the work of a generation of physicists, Higgs postulated the existence of the Brout-Englert-Higgs (BEH) field. Alone among known fundamental fields, the BEH field is “turned on” throughout the universe, rather than flickering in and out of existence and remaining localized. Its existence allowed matter to form in the early universe some 10^-11 s after the Big Bang, thanks to the interactions between elementary particles (such as electrons and quarks) and the ever-present BEH field. Higgs and Englert were awarded the Nobel prize for physics in 2013 in recognition of these achievements.

“Besides his outstanding contributions to particle physics, Peter was a very special person, an immensely inspiring figure for physicists around the world, a man of rare modesty, a great teacher and someone who explained physics in a very simple yet profound way,” said CERN’s Director-General Fabiola Gianotti, expressing the emotion felt by the physics community upon his loss. “An important piece of CERN’s history and accomplishments is linked to him. I am very saddened, and I will miss him sorely.”

Peter Higgs’ scientific legacy will extend far beyond the scope of current discoveries. The Higgs boson – the observable “excitation” of the BEH field which he was the first to identify – is linked to some of most intriguing and crucial outstanding questions in fundamental physics. This still quite mysterious particle therefore represents a uniquely promising portal to physics beyond the SM. Since discovering it in 2012, the ATLAS and CMS collaborations have already made impressive progress in constraining its properties – a painstaking scientific study which will form a central plank of research at the LHC, high-luminosity LHC and future colliders for decades to come, promising insights into the many unanswered questions in fundamental science.

(Video: CERN)

cmenard Wed, 04/10/2024 - 09:33

Publication Date

Wed, 04/10/2024 - 09:21

FASER measures high-energy neutrino interaction strength

cmenard — Thu, 04 Apr 2024 12:46:29 +0000

FASER measures high-energy neutrino interaction strength

Operating at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) since 2022, the FASER experiment is designed to search for extremely weakly interacting particles. Such particles are predicted by many theories beyond the Standard Model that are attempting to solve outstanding problems in physics such as the nature of dark matter and the matter-antimatter imbalance in the Universe. Another goal of the experiment is to study interactions of high-energy neutrinos produced in the LHC collisions, particles that are nearly impossible to detect in the four big LHC experiments. Last week, at the annual Rencontres de Moriond conference, the FASER collaboration presented a measurement of the interaction strength, or “cross section”, of electron neutrinos (ν_e) and muon neutrinos (ν_μ). This is the first time such a measurement has been made at a particle collider. Measurements of this kind can provide important insights across different aspects of physics, from understanding the production of “forward” particles in the LHC collisions and improving our understanding of the structure of the proton to interpreting measurements of high-energy neutrinos from astrophysical sources performed by neutrino-telescope experiments.

FASER is located in a side tunnel of the LHC accelerator, 480 metres away from the ATLAS detector collision point. At that location, the LHC beam is already nearly 10 metres away, bending away on its circular 27-kilometre path. This is a unique location for studying weakly interacting particles produced in the LHC collisions. Charged particles produced in the collisions are deflected by the LHC magnets. Most neutral particles are stopped by the hundreds of metres of rock between FASER and ATLAS. Only very weakly interacting neutral particles like neutrinos are expected to continue straight on and reach the location where the detector is installed.

The probability of a neutrino interacting with matter is very small, but not zero. The type of interaction that FASER is sensitive to is where a neutrino interacts with a proton or a neutron inside the detector. In this interaction, the neutrino transforms into a charged “lepton” of the same family – an electron in the case of an ν_e, and a muon in the case of a ν_μ – which is visible in the detector. If the energy of the neutrino is high, several other particles are also produced in the collision.

The detector used to perform the measurement consists of 730 interleaved tungsten plates and photographic emulsion plates. The emulsion was exposed during the period from 26 July to 13 September 2022 and then chemically developed and analysed in search of charged particle tracks. Candidates for neutrino interactions were identified by looking for clusters of tracks that could be traced back to a single vertex. One of these tracks then had to be identified as a high-energy electron or muon.

Event displays identified by the FASER collaboration as candidates for an νe (left) and a νμ (right) interacting in the detector. Invisible here, the neutrinos arrive from the left and then interact to create multiple tracks spraying out to the right (coloured lines), one of which is identified as a charged lepton (labelled). (credit: FASER collaboration)

In total, four candidates for an ν_e interaction and eight candidates for a ν_μ interaction have been found. The four ν_e candidates represent the first direct observation of electron neutrinos produced at a collider. The observations can be interpreted as measurements of neutrino interaction cross sections, yielding (1.2^+0.9_−0.8) ×10⁻³⁸ cm2 GeV⁻¹ in the case of the ν_e and (0.5 ± 0.2) × 10⁻³⁸ cm2 GeV−1 in the case of the ν_μ. The energies of the neutrinos were found to be in a range between 500 and 1700 GeV. No measurement of the neutrino interaction cross section had previously been made at energies above 300 GeV in the case of the ν_e and between 400 GeV and 6 TeV in the case of the ν_μ.

The results obtained by FASER are consistent with expectations and demonstrate the ability of FASER to make neutrino cross-section measurements at the LHC. With the full LHC Run 3 data, 200 times more neutrino events will be detected, allowing much more precise measurements.

The March/April issue of the CERN Courier is out

anschaef — Thu, 04 Apr 2024 12:47:36 +0000

The March/April issue of the CERN Courier is out

The mid-term report of the Future Circular Collider (FCC) feasibility study demonstrates significant progress across all project deliverables, including physics opportunities, the placement and implementation of the ring, civil engineering, technical infrastructure, accelerators, detectors and cost (pp25–38). While further work is to be done, no technical showstoppers have been found. From the perspective of the technical schedule alone, operations of the Higgs, electroweak and top factory FCC-ee could start in the early 2040s.

In China, a technical design report for the Circular Electron–Positron Collider demonstrates significant progress towards a facility that could operate in the second half of the 2030s, along with excellent prospects for approval and funding (p39). Meanwhile in the US, there is renewed interest in colliding muons, for which major technology challenges remain (p45).

All proposed future colliders have a rich physics case rooted in deeper investigation of the Higgs sector, and Europe needs to move fast to minimise the gap between the LHC and the next collider at CERN (p43). If the feasibility study shows that the FCC can be afforded, then it represents the best available option for the future of CERN and particle physics.

Read the digital edition of this new issue on CDS.

anschaef Thu, 04/04/2024 - 14:47

Publication Date

Thu, 04/04/2024 - 14:43

The CMS experiment at CERN measures a key parameter of the Standard Model

angerard — Wed, 03 Apr 2024 09:01:04 +0000

The CMS experiment at CERN measures a key parameter of the Standard Model

Last week, at the annual Rencontres de Moriond conference, the CMS collaboration presented a measurement of the effective leptonic electroweak mixing angle. The result is the most precise measurement performed at a hadron collider to date and is in good agreement with the prediction from the Standard Model.

The Standard Model of Particle Physics is the most precise description to date of particles and their interactions. Precise measurements of its parameters, combined with precise theoretical calculations, yield spectacular predictive power that allows phenomena to be determined even before they are directly observed. In this way, the Model successfully constrained the masses of the W and Z bosons (discovered at CERN in 1983), of the top quark (discovered at Fermilab in 1995) and, most recently, of the Higgs boson (discovered at CERN in 2012). Once these particles had been discovered, these predictions became consistency checks for the Model, allowing physicists to explore the limits of the theory’s validity. At the same time, precision measurements of the properties of these particles are a powerful tool for searching for new phenomena beyond the Standard Model – so-called “new physics” - since new phenomena would manifest themselves as discrepancies between various measured and calculated quantities.

The electroweak mixing angle is a key element of these consistency checks. It is a fundamental parameter of the Standard Model, determining how the unified electroweak interaction gave rise to the electromagnetic and weak interactions through a process known as electroweak symmetry breaking. At the same time, it mathematically ties together the masses of the W and Z bosons that transmit the weak interaction. So, measurements of the W, the Z or the mixing angle provide a good experimental cross-check of the Model.

The two most precise measurements of the weak mixing angle were performed by experiments at the CERN LEP collider and by the SLD experiment at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). The values disagree with each other, which had puzzled physicists for over a decade. The new result is in good agreement with the Standard Model prediction and is a step towards resolving the discrepancy between the latter and the LEP and SLD measurements.

“This result shows that precision physics can be carried out at hadron colliders,” says Patricia McBride, CMS spokesperson. “The analysis had to handle the challenging environment of LHC Run 2, with an average of 35 simultaneous proton-proton collisions. This paves the way for more precision physics at the High-Luminosity LHC, where five times more proton pairs will be colliding simultaneously.”

Precision tests of the Standard Model parameters are the legacy of electron-positron colliders, such as CERN’s LEP, which operated until the year 2000 in the tunnel that now houses the LHC. Electron-positron collisions provide a perfect clean environment for such high-precision measurements. Proton-proton collisions in the LHC are more challenging for this kind of studies, even though the ATLAS, CMS and LHCb experiments have already provided a plethora of new ultra-precise measurements. The challenge is mainly due to huge backgrounds from other physics processes than the one being studied and to the fact that protons, unlike electrons, are not elementary particles. For this new result, reaching a precision similar to that of an electron-positron collider seemed like an impossible task, but it has now been achieved.

The measurement presented by CMS uses a sample of proton-proton collisions collected from 2016 to 2018 at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV and corresponding to a total integrated luminosity of 137 fb⁻¹, meaning about 11 000 million million collisions!

The mixing angle is obtained through an analysis of angular distributions in collisions where pairs of electrons or muons are produced. This is the most precise measurement performed at a hadron collider to date, improving on previous measurements from ATLAS, CMS and LHCb.

angerard Wed, 04/03/2024 - 11:01

Publication Date

Wed, 04/03/2024 - 16:00

The delicate balance of lepton flavours

abelchio — Tue, 26 Mar 2024 09:33:12 +0000

The delicate balance of lepton flavours

In a talk at the ongoing Rencontres de Moriond conference, the ATLAS collaboration presented the result of its latest test of a key principle of the Standard Model of particle physics known as lepton flavour universality. The precision of the result is the best yet achieved by a single experiment in decays of the W boson and surpasses that of the current experimental average.

Most elementary particles can be classed into groups or families with similar properties. For example, the lepton family includes the electron, which forms the negatively charged cloud of particles surrounding the nucleus in every atom, the muon, a heavier particle found in cosmic rays, and the tau-lepton, an even heavier short-lived particle only seen in high-energy particle interactions.

As far as physicists know, the only difference between these particles is their mass, as generated through their different strengths of interaction with the fundamental field associated with the Higgs boson. In particular, a remarkable feature of the Standard Model is that each lepton type, or “flavour”, is equally likely to interact with a W boson, the electrically charged carrier of the weak force that is one of the four fundamental forces of nature. This principle is known as lepton flavour universality.

High-precision tests of lepton flavour universality, as obtained by comparing the rates of decay of the W boson into an electron and an electron neutrino, into a muon and a muon neutrino or into a tau-lepton and a tau neutrino, are therefore sensitive probes of physics beyond the Standard Model. Indeed, if lepton flavour universality holds, these decay rates should be equal (within negligible mass-dependent corrections).

This can be tested by measuring the ratios of the W boson’s rates of decay into the different lepton flavours. One of the challenges associated with such measurements at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the collection of a pure (“unbiased”) sample of W bosons. In a paper released by Nature Physics in 2021, ATLAS reported the world’s most precise measurement of the ratio of the W boson’s rate of decay into a tau-lepton versus its rate of decay into a muon, demonstrating that collision events in which a pair of top quarks is produced provide an abundant and clean sample of W bosons.

In a recent paper, ATLAS released a new measurement, this time addressing the ratio of the W boson’s rate of decay into a muon versus its rate of decay into an electron. While the combination of all previous measurements showed that this ratio is within about 0.6% of unity, corresponding to equal decay rates, there was still room for improvement.

The new ATLAS result is based on a study of its full dataset from the second run of the LHC, collected between 2015 and 2018. The analysis looked at over 100 million top-quark-pair collision events. The top quark decays promptly into a W boson and a bottom quark, so this sample provides 100 million pairs of W bosons. By counting the number of these events with two electrons (and no muon) or two muons (and no electron), physicists can test whether the W boson decays more often into an electron or a muon.

However, it's not that simple. The Z boson, the electrically neutral carrier of the weak force, can also decay into a pair of electrons or muons, leaving a similar experimental signature to that of a top-quark pair. Since the combined mass of the leptons in Z-boson events clusters around the Z-boson mass of 91 GeV, this background process can be estimated and subtracted.

Moreover, as a result of measurements conducted in the 1990s at CERN’s Large Electron–Positron (LEP) collider, the LHC’s predecessor, and at the Stanford Linear Collider (SLC), the ratio of the Z boson’s rate of decay into two muons versus its rate of decay into two electrons is known to be equal to unity within 0.3%. Thus, in this ATLAS analysis, the Z boson’s decay rate ratio was determined as a reference measurement, allowing researchers to reduce uncertainties coming from the reconstruction of electrons and muons. Additionally, as many measurement uncertainties are similar in the events with two electrons and those with two muons, they were found to have only a minor effect on the measured decay rate ratio.

The final result from this new ATLAS analysis is a ratio of 0.9995, with an uncertainty of 0.0045, perfectly compatible with unity. With an uncertainty of only 0.45%, the result is more precise than all previous measurements combined (see figure below). For now, lepton flavour universality survives intact.

Measurements of the ratio of the W boson’s rate of decay into a muon versus its rate of decay into an electron. The new ATLAS result is shown in the last row as an open blue circle. Previous measurements are shown above using solid symbols, and the Particle Data Group average of all previous results is shown using a black diamond. (Image: ATLAS/CERN)

abelchio Tue, 03/26/2024 - 10:33

Byline

ATLAS collaboration

Publication Date

Tue, 03/26/2024 - 10:17

First observation of photons-to-taus in proton–proton collisions by CMS

sandrika — Mon, 25 Mar 2024 15:27:20 +0000

First observation of photons-to-taus in proton–proton collisions by CMS

In March 2024, the CMS collaboration announced the observation of two photons creating two tau leptons in proton–proton collisions. It is the first time that this process has been seen in proton–proton collisions, which was made possible by using the precise tracking capabilities of the CMS detector. It is also the most precise measurement of the tau’s anomalous magnetic moment and offers a new way to constrain the existence of new physics.

The tau, sometimes called tauon, is a peculiar particle in the family of leptons. In general, leptons, together with quarks, make up the “matter” content of the Standard Model (SM). The tau was only discovered in the late 1970s at SLAC, and its associated neutrino – the tau neutrino – completed the tangible matter part upon its discovery in 2000 by the DONUT collaboration at Fermilab. Precise research for the tau is rather tricky though, as its lifetime is very short: it remains stable for only 290·10^-15 s (a hundred quadrillionth of a second).

The two other charged leptons, the electron and the muon, are rather well studied. A lot is also known about their magnetic moments and their associated anomalous magnetic moments. The former can be understood as the strength and orientation of an imaginary bar magnet inside a particle. This measurable quantity, however, needs corrections at the quantum level arising from virtual particles tugging at the magnetic moment, deviating it from the predicted value. The quantum correction, referred to as anomalous magnetic moment, is of the order of 0.1%. If the theoretical and experimental results disagree, then this anomalous magnetic moment, a_l , opens doors to physics beyond the SM.

The anomalous magnetic moment of the electron is one of the most precisely known quantities in particle physics and agrees perfectly with the SM. Its muonic counterpart, on the other hand, is one of the most investigated ones, into which research is ongoing. Although theory and experiments have mostly agreed so far, recent results give rise to a tension that requires further investigation.

For the tau, however, the race is still going. It is especially hard to measure its anomalous magnetic moment, a_τ, due to the tau’s short lifetime. The first attempts to measure a_τ after the tau’s discovery came with an uncertainty that was 30 times higher than the size of the quantum corrections. Experimental efforts at CERN with the LEP and LHC detectors improved the constraints, reducing the uncertainties to 20 times the size of the quantum corrections.

In collisions, researchers look for a special process: two photons interacting to produce two tau leptons, also called a di-tau pair, which then decay into muons, electrons, or charged pions, and neutrinos. So far both ATLAS and CMS have observed this in ultra-peripheral lead–lead collisions. Now, CMS reports on the first observation of the same process during proton–proton collisions. These collisions offer a higher sensitivity to physics beyond the SM as new physics effects increase with the collision energy. With the outstanding tracking capabilities of the CMS detector, the collaboration was able to isolate this specific process from others, by selecting events where the taus are produced without any other track within distances as small as 1 mm. “This remarkable achievement of detecting ultra-peripheral proton–proton collisions sets the stage for many groundbreaking measurements of this kind with the CMS experiment,” said Michael Pitt, from the CMS analysis team.

This new method offers a new way to constrain the tau anomalous magnetic moment, which the CMS collaboration tried out immediately. While the significance will be improved with future run data, their new measurement places the tightest constraints so far, with higher precision than ever before. It reduces the uncertainty from the predictions down to only three times the size of the quantum corrections. “It is truly exciting that we can finally narrow down some of the basic properties of the elusive tau lepton,” said Izaak Neutelings, from the CMS analysis team. “This analysis introduces a novel approach to probe tau g-2 and revitalises measurements that have remained stagnant for more than two decades,” added Xuelong Qin, another member of the analysis team.

Further material: 3D interactive version of the event display with all tracks here.

sandrika Mon, 03/25/2024 - 16:27

Publication Date

Mon, 03/25/2024 - 17:00

Scientists use n_TOF to investigate how cerium is produced in the Universe

ndinmore — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 10:42:33 +0000

Scientists use n_TOF to investigate how cerium is produced in the Universe

The experimental setup. (Image: n_TOF collaboration)

Cerium is a rare Earth metal that has numerous technological applications, for example in some types of lightbulbs and flat-screen TVs. While the element is rare in Earth’s crust, it is slightly more abundant in the Universe. However, much is unknown about how it is synthesised in stars. Now, in a new study published in Physical Review Letters, the n_TOF collaboration at CERN investigates how cerium is produced in stars. The results differ from what was expected from theory, indicating a need to review the mechanisms believed to be responsible for the production of cerium – and other heavier elements – in the Universe.

“The measurement we carried out enabled us to identify nuclear resonances never observed before in the energy range involved in the production of cerium in stars,” explains Simone Amaducci, of INFN’s Southern National Laboratories and first author of the study. “This is thanks to the very-high-energy resolution of the experimental apparatus at CERN and the availability of a very pure sample of cerium 140.”

The abundance of elements heavier than iron observed in stars (such as tin, silver, gold and lead) can be reproduced mathematically by hypothesising the existence of two neutron capture processes: the slow (s) process and the rapid (r) process. The s process corresponds to a neutron flux of 10 million neutrons per cubic centimetre while the r process has a flux of more than one million billion billion neutrons per cubic centimetre. The s process is theorised to produce about half of the elements heavier than iron in the Universe, including cerium.

CERN’s Neutron Time-of-Flight facility (n_TOF) is designed to study neutron interactions, such as those that occur in stars. In this study, the scientists used the facility to measure the nuclear reaction of the cerium 140 isotope with a neutron to produce isotope 141. According to sophisticated theoretical models, this particular reaction plays a crucial role in the synthesis of heavy elements in stars. Specifically, the scientists looked at the reaction’s cross section: the physical quantity that expresses the probability that a reaction occurs. The scientists measured the cross section at a wide range of energies with an accuracy 5% higher than previous measurements.

The results open up new questions about the chemical composition of the Universe. “What intrigued us at the beginning was a discrepancy between theoretical star models and observational data of cerium in the stars of the M22 globular cluster in the Sagittarius constellation,” explains Sergio Cristallo of INAF’s Abruzzo Astronomical Observatory, who proposed the experiment. “The new nuclear data differs significantly, up to 40%, from the data present in the nuclear databases currently used, definitely beyond the estimated uncertainty.”

These results have notable astrophysical implications, suggesting a 20% reduction in the contribution of the s process to the abundance of cerium in the Universe. This means a paradigm shift is required in the theory of cerium nucleosynthesis: other physical processes that are not currently included would need to be considered in calculations of stellar evolution. Furthermore, the new data has a significant impact on scientists’ understanding of the chemical evolution of galaxies, which also affects the production of heavier elements in the Universe.

ndinmore Thu, 03/21/2024 - 11:42

Publication Date

Thu, 03/21/2024 - 17:06