research worker using the Large Hadron Collider ( LHC ) , the flagship experimentation of CERN , have obtained the first mellow - precision mass measure of one of the gruelling fundamental particles in the cosmos , the W boson . The boson is one of the flattop of weak nuclear strength , which is crucial to phenomena like radioactive decay and nuclear fission .
The W boson has a mass of 80370±19 MeV , which is about 86 clip the mass of a exclusive proton . The measure , report in theEuropean Physical Journal C , is ground on about 14 million W bosons observed in the LHC during its first run back in 2011 .
The collider is now working at twice the energy it had during the first ladder and researcher are mad about the possibility of elaborate such a measurement in the near future tense . The value currently hold is not a substitution class shimmy and is coherent with what has been previously measured at the LEP , the predecessor to the LHC , and in the US at the Fermilab ’s Tevatron particle atom smasher .
“ accomplish such a precise measurement despite the exact conditions present in a hadron collider such as the LHC is a great challenge , ” say the physics coordinator of theATLAS Collaboration , Tancredi Carli , in astatement . “ Reaching like precision , as antecedently obtained at other collider , with only one class of Run 1 data point is remarkable . It is an super promising indication of our ability to amend our knowledge of the Standard Model and look for signs of new physical science through highly precise measurement . ”
The Standard Model of speck purgative is the theoretic staging that associate all the fundamental particles to their interactions . It is one of the finest scientific accomplishment of the human wash but it persist special , as , for object lesson , it does n’t let in gravity . Physicists hope to move past the model and are presently looking for measurements that do n’t fit the theory well .
The mass of the W boson could be one of these measure . The Standard Model give us a more precise value than what we can currently measure with our experiments , so it could potentially deviate . The mass of the W boson is also linked to the masses of the Higgs boson and the top quark by quantum aperient relation , so by ameliorate on one measuring , researcher can better read the whole good example .
