Muon mania: are we finally on the brink of new physics?

The global particle physics community has been energised by two recent results that offer tantalising glimpses of new physics beyond the Standard Model of particle physics.

Researchers at CERN’s LHCb experiment have observed something unusual in the way that B mesons decay into leptons – the class of fundamental particle incorporating electrons, muons, taus and their corresponding neutrinos. Meanwhile, researchers at Fermilab may have glimpsed an unknown force at work in the way muons “wobble” in the presence of a magnetic field inside their Muon g-2 experiment.

In this episode of the Physics World Stories podcast, Andrew Glester dissects these new results with the aid of particle physicists who discuss what this means for the field. Joining Glester in this episode are:

Patrick Koppenburg, leader of LHCb’s user analysis software
Jessica Esquivel, a physicist and data analyst at Fermilab
Mark Lancaster and Rebecca Chislett, UK physicists working on the Muon g-2 experiment.