“While the data were being analyzed, we carefully hid the measured value from ourselves to avoid introducing unconscious bias,” Wilson said. Using high-energy particle collisions produced by the Tevatron collider at Fermilab, the CDF collaboration collected huge amounts of data containing W bosons from 1985 to 2011. It is responsible for the nuclear processes that make the sun shine and particles decay. The W boson is a messenger particle of the weak nuclear force. I am grateful that we could help Baylor earn a place among the top universities in this exciting field.” “It’s a privilege to team up with colleagues from around the world to make a real impact on our collective understanding of nature. “With its gigantic particle accelerators and huge international collaborations, experimental high energy physics is truly big science,” Dittmann said.

World-leading scientific results like this one are the fruit of Baylor’s investment in basic research.

The creation and growth of the Baylor HEP research group, which has been part of the CDF experimental collaboration since 2003, has always been a big part of Baylor’s push towards Research 1 status, a designation achieved by the University in December 2021. If confirmed, this measurement suggests the potential need for improvements to the Standard Model calculation or extensions to the model. When we finished and looked at the final result, we saw that it was different from the predictions of the Standard Model of particle physics.” “It involved new work to understand our particle detector at a level that we had never before achieved as well as significant advances in our theoretical understanding of how the W boson behaves. “This result required a tremendous and steadfast effort over the course of many years,” Wilson said. The result: The new mass value shows tension with the value scientists obtain using experimental and theoretical inputs in the context of the Standard Model. The new precision measurement, published in the journal Science, allows scientists to test the Standard Model of particle physics, the theoretical framework that describes nature at its most fundamental level. In particular, the Baylor physicists helped design, assemble and test the Level 1 tracking trigger system used to identify collision events for analysis. Dittmann, Ph.D., professor of physics Kenichi Hatakeyama, Ph.D., associate professor of physics and Jon Wilson, Ph.D., postdoctoral research associate – all contributed significantly to the successful construction and operation of the CDF experiment that produced the data for the measurement. This precision is comparable to a kicker making a field goal from a distance of two and a half miles.īaylor HEP researchers – including Jay R. Using data collected by the Collider Detector at Fermilab, or CDF, scientists have now determined the particle’s mass with a precision of 0.01% – twice as precise as the previous best measurement. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory – including Baylor University researchers with the Experimental High Energy Physics (HEP) group – announced today that they have achieved the most precise measurement to date of the mass of the W boson, one of nature’s force-carrying particles. Media Contact: Lori Fogleman, Baylor University Media and Public Relations, 25įollow us on Twitter: Texas (April 7, 2022) – After 10 years of careful analysis and scrutiny, scientists of the CDF collaboration at the U.S. Baylor’s Experimental High Energy Physics group among scientists with significant contributions to the successful maintenance and operation of the experiment measuring one of nature’s force-carrying particles

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