Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • NEWS

Is the standard model broken? Physicists cheer major muon result

The muon’s magnetic moment is larger than expected — a hint that new elementary particles are waiting to be discovered.
  1. Davide Castelvecchi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

Muons keep on misbehaving. An experiment in the United States has confirmed an earlier finding that the particles — massive, unstable cousins of the electron — are more magnetic than researchers originally expected. If the results hold up, they could ultimately force major changes in theoretical physics and reveal the existence of completely new fundamental particles.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Get just this article for as long as you need it

$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 592, 333-334 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-00898-z

References

  1. Abi, B. et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 126, 141801 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Bennett, G. W. et al. Phys. Rev. D 73, 072003 (2006).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Aoyama, T. et al. Phys. Rep. 887, 1–166 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Borsanyi, Sz et al. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03418-1 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links