Could no new particles at the LHC be exactly what physics needs?
It’s the ‘nightmare scenario’ for some. But for Sabine Hossenfelder, it might be a dream come true.
This article was authored by Sabine Hossenfelder. Sabine is a theoretical physicist specialized in quantum gravity and high energy physics. She also freelance writes about science. Her blog, Backreaction, can be found here.
“We have made the discovery of a new particle — a completely new particle — which is most probably very different from all the other particles. It’s nearly a once in a lifetime experience, I would say.” -Rolf-Dieter Heuer
At the end of the LHC’s first run at high energies, both the CMS and ATLAS collaborations reported a particularly interesting “bump” in the diphoton channel. Based on what’s known and predicted of the Standard Model, there should be a particular pattern to two-photon signals with a given particular energy. A bump is the most surefire indication we can look for in the search for a new particle, and a bump of a particular size, width and energy could either indicate a completely new, fundamental, beyond-the-standard-model particle, the first of its kind — or a new standard model feature — or it could simply be statistical noise. Despite the fact that it would be the nightmare of most of…
