On 7 April 2021, physicists at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory near Chicago announced that muons — elementary particles similar to electrons — wobbled more than expected while shooting around a magnetised ring. This seemingly innocuous statement in fact provides strong evidence for the existence of a new fundamental force of nature unaccounted for in current theories. If confirmed, this measurement would herald a revolutionary shift in our understanding of fundamental physics, potentially shedding light on some of its deepest mysteries, including the nature of dark matter and even the origins of the Universe itself.
However, alternative detailed calculations performed by supercomputers dispute its significance, claiming that these results do in fact agree precisely with our current theory. Could we be on the cusp of a revolution? In this talk, Dr Amelia Drew (DAMTP) and Dr William Fawcett (Cavendish Laboratory and CERN) will explain this new experimental result and discuss its exciting implications.
This free online event is part of the 2021 Cambridge Alumni Festival. To book places and find out more, please see the Alumni Festival programme.
