PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Electron's shapeliness throws a curve at supersymmetry

2013-12-20
(Press-News.org) Contact information: Eric Gershon
eric.gershon@yale.edu
203-432-8555
Yale University
Electron's shapeliness throws a curve at supersymmetry A small band of particle-seeking scientists at Yale and Harvard has established a new benchmark for the electron's almost perfect roundness, raising doubts about certain theories that predict what lies beyond physics' reigning model of fundamental forces and particles, the Standard Model.

"We know the Standard Model does not encompass everything," said Yale physicist David DeMille, who with John Doyle and Gerald Gabrielse of Harvard leads the ACME collaboration, a team using a strikingly different method to detect some of the same types of particles sought by huge experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Europe. "Like our LHC colleagues, we're trying to see something in the lab that's different from what the Standard Model predicts."

ACME is looking for new particles of matter by measuring their effects on the shape of the electron, the negatively charged subatomic particle orbiting within every atom.

In research published Dec. 19 in Science Express, the team 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 some versions of Supersymmetry. This theory posits new types of particles that help account, for example, for dark matter, a mysterious substance estimated to make up most of the universe.

Researchers said they have shown that the electron's departure from spherical perfection — if it exists at all — must be smaller than predicted by many theories proposing particles the Standard Model doesn't account for. If the electron's shape is too round, many of these theories will be proven wrong, they said.

Many variants of Supersymmetry predict a less round shape for the electron than the ACME team found experimentally. If the particles predicted by those versions of Supersymmetry existed, they would have caused greater deformation of the electron, researchers said.

The ACME project looked for a particular deformation in the electron's shape known as an electric dipole moment.

"You can picture the dipole moment as what would happen if you took a perfect sphere, shaved a thin layer off one hemisphere and laid it on top of the other side," said DeMille, who helped establish previous landmark limits in electron deformation. "The thicker the layer, the larger the dipole moment. Now imagine an electron blown up to the size of the earth. Our experiment would have been able to see a layer 10,000 times thinner than a human hair, moved from the southern to the northern hemisphere. But we didn't see it, and that rules out some theories."

The ACME researchers measured the dipole moment using electrons inside the polar molecule thorium monoxide. The molecule's properties amplify the electron's deformation and diminish the possibility of effects that could fool researchers into thinking they had seen a tiny deformation when none exists.

"It is amazing that some of these predicted supersymmetric particles would squeeze the electron into a kind of egg shape," said Harvard's Doyle. "Our experiment is telling us that this just doesn't happen at our level of sensitivity."

Gabrielse, also of Harvard, said: "It's unusual and satisfying that the exquisite precision achieved by our small team in a university lab probes the most fundamental building block of our universe at a sensitivity that complements what is being achieved by thousands at the world's largest accelerator."

###

The paper is titled "Order of Magnitude Smaller Limit on the Electric Dipole Moment of the Electron."

Co-authors are J. Baron, W.C. Campbell, Y. V. Gurevich, P. W. Hess, N. R. Hutzler, E. Kirilov, I. Kozyryev, B. R. O'Leary, C. D. Panda, M. F. Parsons, E. S. Petrik, B. Spaun, A. C. Vutha, and A. D. West.

The National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Standards and Technology provided support for the research.

END



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Salt under pressure is not NaCl

2013-12-20
Salt under pressure is not NaCl In the very beginning of the school chemistry course, we are told of NaCl as an archetypal ionic compound. Being less electronegative, sodium loses its electron to chlorine, which, following the "octet rule", thus acquires the ...

Amino acid's increase is suspected in diabetes

2013-12-20
Amino acid's increase is suspected in diabetes Research examines effects of lower and higher tyrosine levels SAN ANTONIO (Dec. 19, 2013) — Elevated levels of an amino acid, tyrosine, alter development and longevity in animals and may ...

'Universal ripple' could hold the secret to high-temperature superconductivity

2013-12-20
'Universal ripple' could hold the secret to high-temperature superconductivity UBC researchers have discovered a universal electronic state that controls the behavior of high-temperature superconducting copper-oxide ceramics. The work, published ...

Protein links liver cancer with obesity, alcoholism, and hepatitis

2013-12-20
Protein links liver cancer with obesity, alcoholism, and hepatitis A new study identifies an unexpected molecular link between liver cancer, cellular stress, and risk factors for developing this cancer – obesity, alcoholism, and viral hepatitis. In the study by University ...

Inadequate pregnancy weight gain a risk factor for infant mortality

2013-12-20
Inadequate pregnancy weight gain a risk factor for infant mortality One-quarter of US women gain an inadequate amount of weight during pregnancy, University of Maryland School of Public Health study shows Women who do not gain enough weight during pregnancy are at increased ...

Lactation consultant visits spur breastfeeding among women who usually resist it

2013-12-20
Lactation consultant visits spur breastfeeding among women who usually resist it December 19, 2013—(BRONX, NY)—In two separate clinical trials, researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have found that periodic meetings ...

Researchers show the power of mirror neuron system in learning and language understanding

2013-12-20
Researchers show the power of mirror neuron system in learning and language understanding TEMPE, Ariz. – Anyone who has tried to learn a second language knows how difficult it is to absorb new words and use them to accurately express ideas in a completely new cultural ...

How cells remodel after UV radiation

2013-12-20
How cells remodel after UV radiation Researchers map cell's complex genetic interactions to fix damaged DNA Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, with colleagues in The Netherlands and United Kingdom, have produced the ...

NASA sees Tropical Cyclone Bruce still wide-eyed

2013-12-20
NASA sees Tropical Cyclone Bruce still wide-eyed Tropical Cyclone Bruce was still maintaining hurricane-force in the Southern Indian Ocean when NASA's Terra satellite passed over the eye of the storm. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer instrument ...

Greek economic crisis leads to air pollution crisis

2013-12-20
Greek economic crisis leads to air pollution crisis Levels of dangerous air particulates jump 30 percent as people turn to burning cheaper fuel sources In the midst of a winter cold snap, a study from researchers in the United States and Greece reveals an ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Strain “trick” improves perovskite solar cells’ efficiency

How GPS helps older drivers stay on the roads

Estrogen and progesterone stimulate the body to make opioids

Dancing with the cells – how acoustically levitating a diamond led to a breakthrough in biotech automation

Machine learning helps construct an evolutionary timeline of bacteria

Cellular regulator of mRNA vaccine revealed... offering new therapeutic options

Animal behavioral diversity at risk in the face of declining biodiversity

Finding their way: GPS ignites independence in older adult drivers

Antibiotic resistance among key bacterial species plateaus over time

‘Some insects are declining but what’s happening to the other 99%?’

Powerful new software platform could reshape biomedical research by making data analysis more accessible

Revealing capillaries and cells in living organs with ultrasound

American College of Physicians awards $260,000 in grants to address equity challenges in obesity care

Researchers from MARE ULisboa discover that the European catfish, an invasive species in Portugal, has a prolonged breeding season, enhancing its invasive potential

Rakesh K. Jain, PhD, FAACR, honored with the 2025 AACR Award for Lifetime Achievement in Cancer Research

Solar cells made of moon dust could power future space exploration

Deporting immigrants may further shrink the health care workforce

Border region emergency medical services in migrant emergency care

Resident physician intentions regarding unionization

Healthy nutrition and physical lifestyle choices lower cancer mortality risk for survivors, new ACS study finds

Mass General Brigham researchers reveal 17 modifiable risk factors shared by stroke, dementia, and late-life depression

Promising drug discovery research gets funding boost from Ontario Institute for Cancer Research

Carbon capture could become practical with scalable, affordable materials

USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center opens state-of-the-art Newport Beach Radiation Oncology and Imaging Center

Chan Zuckerberg Biohub New York announces new investigators for immune system research to improve human health

New research suggests White Americans in areas with higher Black poverty are more likely to blame racial inequality on lack of effort

Solar wave squeezed Jupiter’s magnetic shield to unleash heat

Cognitive decline comes sooner for people with heart failure

SMEs’ ability to innovate is strongly tied to the learning and decision-making skills of managers

Researchers recycle wind turbine blade materials to make improved plastics

[Press-News.org] Electron's shapeliness throws a curve at supersymmetry