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Science & Tech.
Pradeep Kumar

11/04/21 09:25 AM IST

Hint of ‘new physics

In news

Fermilab, which houses the American particle accelerator, has released the first results from its ‘muon g-2’ experiment

Details
  • These results spotlight the anomalous behaviour of the elementary particle called the muon.
  • The muon, a heavier cousin of the electron, is expected to have a value of 2 for its magnetic moment, labelled ‘g’.
  • The muon exists not in isolation but embedded in a sea where particles are popping out and vanishing every instant due to quantum effects.
  • So, its g value is altered by its interactions with these short-lived excitations.
Measured Value
  • The muon g-2 experiment measured the extent of the anomaly
  • Fermilab announced that the measured ‘g’ deviated from the amount predicted by the Standard Model.
  • That is, while the calculated value in the Standard Model is 2.00233183620 approximately, the experimental results show a value of 2.00233184122.
  • When the results are combined with those from a 20-year-old experiment at Brookhaven National Laboratory in the U.S., they show an accuracy of about 4.2 sigma.
  • This means the possibility that this is due to a statistical fluctuation is about 1 in 40,000.
The g factor
  • The muon is also known as the ‘fat electron’.
  • It is produced copiously in the Fermilab experiments and occurs naturally in cosmic ray showers.
  • Like the electron, the muon has a magnetic moment because of which, when it is placed in a magnetic field, it spins and precesses, or wobbles slightly, like the axis of a spinning top.
  • Its internal magnetic moment, the g factor, determines the extent of this wobble.
  • As the muon spins, it also interacts with the surrounding environment, which consists of short-lived particles popping in and out of a vacuum.
Source: The Hindu

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