Muons keep on misbehaving. An experiment in the United States has confirmed an earlier finding that the particles — massive, unstable cousins of the electron — are more magnetic than researchers originally expected. If the results hold up, they could ultimately force major changes in theoretical physics and reveal the existence of completely new fundamental particles.
The Muon g – 2 collaboration at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) outside Chicago, Illinois, reported the latest measurements in a webcast on 7 April, and published them in Physical Review Letters1. The results are “extremely encouraging” for those hoping to discover other particles, says Susan Gardner, a physicist at the University of Kentucky in Lexington.
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