Electron's Roundness Throws A Curve At Supersymmetry
Sunday, December 29, 2013 - 06:30
in Physics & Chemistry
Physicists at Yale and Harvard have thrown a new curve at Supersymmetry, the popular hypothesis about what lies beyond physics' reigning model of fundamental forces and particles, the Standard Model. And it involves the electron's almost perfect roundness. The researchers have reported the most precise measurement to date of the electron's shape, improving it by a factor of more than 10 and showing the particle to be rounder than predicted by some extensions of the Standard Model, including Supersymmetry. Supersymmetry posits new types of particles that help account for ideas like dark matter, a mysterious, unknown substance estimated to make up most of the universe. read more