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

What’s next for physics’ standard model? Muon results throw theories into confusion

Anomalies to fundamental theory have physicists trying to concoct new explanations.
  1. Davide Castelvecchi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

Physicists should be ecstatic right now. Taken at face value, the surprisingly strong magnetism of the elementary particles called muons, revealed by an experiment this month, suggests that the established theory of fundamental particles is incomplete. If the discrepancy pans out, it would be the first time that the theory has failed to account for observations since its inception five decades ago — and there is nothing physicists love more than proving a theory wrong.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

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

Nature 593, 18-19 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-01033-8

References

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

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. LHCb Collaboration et al. Preprint at https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.11769 (2021).

  3. 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