Scientists At CERN May Have Detected A New "Ghost Particle"

Scientists are trying to work out if a unusual raw corpuscle , dubbed a “ ghost speck ” , has been detected at CERN ’s Large Hadron Collider ( LHC ) in Switzerland .

Using the Compact Muon Solenoid ( CMS ) instrumental role on the particle accelerator , the squad said they had seen a signal that could be a particle that ’s twice the raft of a carbon copy mote . But as the particle does not fit get it on theories , it could cause a act of a stir if it exists . Their finding , which have not yet been peer - reviewed , are available onarXiv .

“ I ’d say theoriser are excited and experimentalists are very questioning , ” Alexandre Nikitenko , a theorizer on the CMS team who worked on the data , toldThe Guardian . “ As a physicist I must be very decisive , but as the generator of this analysis I must have some optimism too . ”

The squad were due to discuss their finding in a merging today at CERN . Those findings hint a build up - up of muons , which are heavy electrons , in the CMS detector . This would correspond to a atom with a volume of 28GeV , which is about a fourth the mass of the Higgs boson at 125 GeV.

It may take another class to get out if this particle is real or not , but asScience Alertnotes , even if it is real it ’s not exactly physics - breaking . “ But it is strange – a batch that has formed where no mass was expected , ” they say .

This is n’t the only molecule news we ’ve had this year . In fact , this is n’t even the only “ ghost particle ” news we ’ve had , because in July , astronomers harbinger the discovery of neutrinoscoming from an energetic galaxy4 billion tripping - year aside – a slightly dissimilar discovery , for sure though .

Perhaps more relevant was the news from September this yr , when scientists suggested they “ better the Standard Model ” withthe detectionof ultra - gamey energy cosmic neutrino using the Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna ( ANITA ) .

In March , there was news of the weirdly named “ skyrimon ” , a speck withball lightning - like property . And also in September , result at CERNhinted at a particlethat seemed to defy the Standard Model .

Will this latest uncovering stand up to scrutiny ? Time will tell . But it ’s sure an exciting time for physics at the present moment .