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A 'no-brainer Nobel Prize': Hungarian scientists may have found a fifth force of nature
Scientists at the Institute for Nuclear Research at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (Atomki) have posted findings showing what could be an example of that fifth force at work.
The scientists were closely watching how an excited helium atom emitted light as it decayed. The particles split at an unusual angle -- 115 degrees -- which couldn't be explained by known physics.
The study's lead scientist, Attila Krasznahorkay, told CNN that this was the second time his team had detected a new particle, which they call X17, because they calculated its mass at 17 megaelectronvolts. "X17 could be a particle, which connects our visible world with the dark matter," he said in an email.
Jonathan Feng, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California at Irvine told CNN he's been following the Hungarian team's work for years, and believes its research is shaping up to be a game changer. If these results can be replicated, "this would be a no-brainer Nobel Prize," he said.
Also at ScienceAlert and Popular Mechanics.
2016: Observation of Anomalous Internal Pair Creation in 8Be: A Possible Indication of a Light, Neutral Boson (open, DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.042501) (DX)
(Score: 2) by Rupert Pupnick on Tuesday November 26 2019, @01:14AM (3 children)
Can any physicists comment on where 17 MeV falls along the continuum of naturally occurring particle energies?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 26 2019, @01:27AM
Slightly hotter than paprika.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 26 2019, @01:36AM
Electron/positron masses are 0.511 MeV and the proton/neutron is something like 1 GeV. The pion is 135 MeV and the muon is about 105 MeV. It is pretty low mass.
(Score: 3, Informative) by PiMuNu on Tuesday November 26 2019, @01:10PM
In terms of bosons (force carriers); the photon, graviton and gluon have zero mass; the W boson and Z0 boson have mass about 80 or 90 GeV/c^2 (i.e. 80,000 MeV/c^2); the Higgs has mass is about 125 GeV/c^2