Beyond the Standard Model
upward neutrinos ‘oscillating’ and change type of muon neutrinos to tau neutrinos due to taking longer to arrive. 15
This discrepancy revealed that neutrinos, in fact, have a detectable mass, although it is still incredibly small compared to other fundamental particles, ignoring photons. With this in mind, there have been greater strides in the observations of neutrino oscillations, with even solar neutrinos having been detected changing types. There have also been other experiments that have aimed to uncover further secrets surrounding neutrinos, such as the T2K experiment, which aimed to see if there were any behavioural difference between beams of neutrinos and antineutrinos fired at Super-Kamiokande. Looking ahead, there are also upcoming investigations into interactions that are unlikely under the current SM but could be possible with other theories. COMET and mu2e are both ongoing projects that aim to observe a regular muon decay into an electron without the formation of a neutrino. 16 This interaction, if detected, would open the door to new frontiers in physics. But the need to wait will become a recurring idea, as we now move on from more concrete attempts to go beyond the Standard Model, and now look at the more theoretical solutions, that have yet to leave the pages of academic papers.
Possible theories, and their flaws
At the edge of modern physics, there are the theories that aim to begin the arduous process of going beyond the understanding of the SM, whether it be by creating an entire range of new particles that are linked to the current fundamental particles through supersymmetry, or through the idea that the supposed point particles (that is, particles with no size) were actually 1-dimensional strings, reliant on multiple dimensions to work out mathematically: this is the complex and controversial string theory. Supersymmetry aims to explain the inconsistencies of the SM, such as the lighter-than-expected mass of the Higgs boson, through the idea that there are other particles, as of yet undetected, that cancel out the extra mass that would be necessary for the masses of particles such as the W and Z bosons. 17 These particles are paired up with the regular fundamental particles, with each fermion 18 paired with its respective supersymmetric boson, and vice versa with regular bosons. Currently, fermions and bosons behave very differently, as fermions are unable to share the same state in a system due to the ‘Pauli Exclusion Principle’, whil e bosons do not need to follow this concept. As a result, supersymmetry becomes a tempting way to try and connect both types of particles, as well as how these undetectable particles are a prime candidate for dark matter, as the lightest of them would interact weakly with most matter, and have a neutral charge, which matches with current descriptions of dark matter. All of these features have made supersymmetry a tempting theory to explain the current flaws of the Standard Model.
15 See Super- Kamiokande, ‘Atmospheric Neutrinos’ . 16 See COMET, ‘μ - e conversion search’. 17 See CERN, ‘Supersymmetry’ . 18 Fermions have a ‘spin’ unit of ½, whil e bosons have whole number ‘spin’ unit.
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