In the quest for discovering the the fundamental particles that make up the universe, physicists now announce that a "new era of physics" is here, as data from the particle smasher, the Large Hadron Collider housed under a mountain in Switzerland, may have identified a particle activity that does not fit the standard laws of physics.
Scientists and physicists from the Nuclear Physics at the Polish Academy of Sciences (IFJ PAN) reveal that this new "discovery" can cause massive implications in science.
According to a statement from IFJ PAN, there are possible indications that physicists of the LHC accelerator in the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) near Geneva that also hints at the first evidence of physics that is beyond the current theory that involves the basic structure of matter.
This structure of matter is also described in theory known as The Standard Model that determines the roles of different particles. For example, Boson particles carry forces, photons are linked to electromagnetic activity and matter is formed by particles known as fermions.
While scientists are analyzing data that is consolidated from the 2011-2012 LHCb experiment, they noticed an anomaly of the decay of a particle known as B Meson. Research says that this traditional technique in determining the particle's decay can lead to false results.
According to Mariusz Witek of IFJ PAN, scientists are deeply intrigued with this anomaly where Witek likened this discovery to cinema, where a few leaked scenes or past LHC detections are revealed from a blockbuster movie, as the LHC finally released its first official trailer.
Witek further explains that this framework that is relied on to describe the structure of matter, now challenges the very foundation of it due to this new "discovery". He says that the Standard Model cannot explain all the features of the universe where it cannot predict the masses of particles or why fermions are organized into three families. It also brings about questions regarding why the presence of anti matter is more than matter in the universe, and what is the composition of dark matter.
Scientists now believe that more research is needed on this B Meson anomaly, where they say that this is not yet considered as an official discovery.
According to CERN spokesman Arnaud Marsollier, data on the B Meson first appeared last year but they are not yet conclusive. He explains that more data are needed before announcing anything significant about this, which means the team will wait for the LHC to restart soon.
Marsollier adds that CERN is currently beginning some testing on powering the massive particle accelerator, saying that beams will be back again by the end of March or early April, as collisions will occur next month if everything will go as planed.
The LHC is the biggest particle collider ever built that measures 17 miles, to help physicists and scientists to test some theories of high energy physic and understand the physical laws of the universe and what holds everything together.