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Scientists are worried about the W Boson: 'Something is amiss'

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Re: Scientists are worried about the W Boson: 'Something is amiss'

#21

Post by beezle »

I watched the CDF presentation early yesterday morning at the April APS meeting. Nothing to indicate they were anything but meticulous in their data analysis and modeling. Keep in mind the main change in CDF II is a great reduction in uncertainty - the central value is not much changed from the original CDF results many years ago.

Tommaso Dorigo [1] covers a lot of the points where some of their assumptions/methods can be reasonably questioned but the effects would not push the result that much closer to the current SM theoretical value.

[1] https://www.science20.com/tommaso_dorigo/is_the_cdf_w_mass_m...

Re: Scientists are worried about the W Boson: 'Something is amiss'

#22

Post by rob_c »

eightysixfour wrote: post #19
IAmGraydon wrote: post #4

This article states that the most recent measurement agrees with others over the last decade. That is simply not true. https://non-trivial-solution.blogspot.com/2022/04/do-we-have...

According to the chart here: https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/04/higher-w-boson-mass-... It seems to align with measurements from: * D0 I * CDF I * OPAL * ALEPH I do not know what refinements happened between D0 1/2, or CDF 1/2.

Potentially just a refinement in the strategy of the analysis and/or more compute/time. Not the first time a measurement like this was off due to poor blinding...

Re: Scientists are worried about the W Boson: 'Something is amiss'

#23

Post by macintux »

lupire wrote: post #8
IAmGraydon wrote: post #4

This article states that the most recent measurement agrees with others over the last decade. That is simply not true. https://non-trivial-solution.blogspot.com/2022/04/do-we-have...

> this finally the sign of new physics, which we all have been hoping for? I don't understand this mindset? Why (aside from creating jobs) is it good to discover that the universe is more complicated than we knew, or that we were wrong? To me, what we want in "new physics" is explanations for unexplained phenomena, or resolutions to know problems/inconsistencies (like quantum vs gravity), or emergent effects that les…

When you know you have bugs in your code (or, in our case, an incomplete understanding of physics) finding new, unexpected behavior gives you new ways to identify the problem.

Re: Scientists are worried about the W Boson: 'Something is amiss'

#24

Post by PeterisP »

brtkdotse wrote: post #6
hprotagonist wrote: post #3

we'd have to change our understanding of how all the particles in the universe work. Well, remember the new paper? We're pretty much entering that worst case scenario. I believe you mean "best case"! There was much hue and cry after the Higgs discovery because the result, at least from the outside, seemed like "welp, we predicted a thing and found it and we don't have any new physics to disagree with; what a letdown!…

> the instrument deformed slowly under its own weight for the last decade and now we're 4 angstroms off This was hilarious and plausible at the same time. Nice work!

It's like the six-sigma result of CERN OPERA experiment showing neutrinos travaling slightly faster than speed of light - which was ultimately caused by a fiber cable between clocks not being fully tightened and thus causing a tiny delay and messing up the measurements.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light_neutrino_ano...

Re: Scientists are worried about the W Boson: 'Something is amiss'

#25

Post by naikrovek »

hprotagonist wrote: post #3

we'd have to change our understanding of how all the particles in the universe work. Well, remember the new paper? We're pretty much entering that worst case scenario. I believe you mean "best case"! There was much hue and cry after the Higgs discovery because the result, at least from the outside, seemed like "welp, we predicted a thing and found it and we don't have any new physics to disagree with; what a letdown!…

yep, I came here to say this. gaining understanding is a very good outcome.

SO WHAT if it means other things are wrong? we need to know what we are wrong about if we are ever to get any of it right.

Re: Scientists are worried about the W Boson: 'Something is amiss'

#26

Post by heavyset_go »

smueller1234 wrote: post #7
brtkdotse wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the instrument deformed slowly under its own weight for the last decade and now we're 4 angstroms off This was hilarious and plausible at the same time. Nice work!

Totally plausible indeed! One of the recent (past decade or so) major mistaken discoveries in particle physics was a cabling issue. And from a different field, but closer to the quip: semiconductor lithography lenses' own weight causes stresses that cause birefringence in the optics that has to be explicitly corrected for. And that was true 20 years ago already. (Recovering particle physicist here and thinking about…

> One of the recent (past decade or so) major mistaken discoveries in particle physics was a cabling issue.

Have more info on this or link about it?

Re: Scientists are worried about the W Boson: 'Something is amiss'

#27

Post by perihelions »

heavyset_go wrote: post #26
smueller1234 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally plausible indeed! One of the recent (past decade or so) major mistaken discoveries in particle physics was a cabling issue. And from a different field, but closer to the quip: semiconductor lithography lenses' own weight causes stresses that cause birefringence in the optics that has to be explicitly corrected for. And that was true 20 years ago already. (Recovering particle physicist here and thinking about…

> One of the recent (past decade or so) major mistaken discoveries in particle physics was a cabling issue. Have more info on this or link about it?

I'm guessing the parent is referring to

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light_neutrino_ano...

Re: Scientists are worried about the W Boson: 'Something is amiss'

#30

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

perihelions wrote: post #27
heavyset_go wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of the recent (past decade or so) major mistaken discoveries in particle physics was a cabling issue. Have more info on this or link about it?

I'm guessing the parent is referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light_neutrino_ano...

"EM Drive" also probably counts.
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