{"id":28948,"date":"2025-06-03T16:01:20","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T16:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=28948"},"modified":"2025-06-03T16:23:25","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T16:23:25","slug":"results-of-muon-experiment-offer-more-precision-but-no-added-clarity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=28948","title":{"rendered":"Results of Muon Experiment Offer More Precision But No Added Clarity"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The deviant behavior of a tiny particle called the muon might point to undiscovered forms of matter and energy in the universe. Or it might not.<\/p>\n

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It has been 12 years since physicists transported a giant magnetic ring down the Atlantic coast, around Florida, up the Mississippi River and across two interstates to Batavia, Ill. On Tuesday, the team behind that ring unveiled their final result: the most precise value yet recorded for the tiny wobble of a subatomic particle called the muon.<\/p>\n

Physicists hoped that the measurement, submitted to the journal Physical Review Letters<\/a>, would open a window to new types of energy and matter that so far have only been theorized.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to know how our universe formed, what it\u2019s made out of and how it interacts,\u201d said Peter Winter, a physicist at Argonne National Laboratory and a spokesman for the Muon g-2 Collaboration, which ran the experiment at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, or Fermilab. The new result, he said, \u201cwill stand as a benchmark for years to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

But a glaring problem remains. Physicists have predicted two distinct values for the muon\u2019s wobble but aren\u2019t sure which is correct. The new result matches one prediction, but until the other prediction can be satisfyingly explained away, scientists won\u2019t know if they have uncovered evidence of new physics.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe Fermilab experiment is hugely successful, they did their job,\u201d said Aida El-Khadra, a physicist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who leads the Muon g-2 Theory Initiative<\/a>. \u201cWe theorists, we still need to follow up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Until the dust settles, Dr. El-Khadra added, \u201cthe jury is still out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Muons are similar to electrons but far heavier and unstable in nature. When placed in a magnetic field, they precess, or wobble, like a spinning top. The speed of that wobble depends on a property of the muon related to its internal magnetism, known to physicists as g.<\/p>\n

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The deviant behavior of a tiny particle called the muon might point to undiscovered forms of matter and energy in the universe. Or it might not.It has been 12 years since physicists transported a giant magnetic ring down the Atlantic coast, around Florida, up the Mississippi River and across two interstates to Batavia, Ill. On Tuesday, the team behind that ring unveiled their final result: the most precise value yet recorded for the tiny wobble of a subatomic particle called the muon.Physicists hoped that the measurement, submitted to the journal Physical Review Letters, would open a window to new types of energy and matter that so far have only been theorized.\u201cWe want to know how our universe formed, what it\u2019s made out of and how it interacts,\u201d said Peter Winter, a physicist at Argonne National Laboratory and a spokesman for the Muon g-2 Collaboration, which ran the experiment at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, or Fermilab. The new result, he said, \u201cwill stand as a benchmark for years to come.\u201dBut a glaring problem remains. Physicists have predicted two distinct values for the muon\u2019s wobble but aren\u2019t sure which is correct. The new result matches one prediction, but until the other prediction can be satisfyingly explained away, scientists won\u2019t know if they have uncovered evidence of new physics.\u201cThe Fermilab experiment is hugely successful, they did their job,\u201d said Aida El-Khadra, a physicist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who leads the Muon g-2 Theory Initiative. \u201cWe theorists, we still need to follow up.\u201dUntil the dust settles, Dr. El-Khadra added, \u201cthe jury is still out.\u201dMuons are similar to electrons but far heavier and unstable in nature. When placed in a magnetic field, they precess, or wobble, like a spinning top. The speed of that wobble depends on a property of the muon related to its internal magnetism, known to physicists as g.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28950,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28948"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28951,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28948\/revisions\/28951"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}