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Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1998 11:59:38 -0800
To: pinhole@exploratorium.edu
From: Paul Doherty <pauld@exploratorium.edu>
Subject: Why This Particle's Decay Really Matters
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>Subject: Why This Particle's Decay Really Matters
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>http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/1998/1211/1
>
>
> 11 December 1998 6:00 PM
>
>
> Why This Particle's Decay Really Matters
>
>
>CHICAGO--Scientists working at the giant Fermi NationalAccelerator
>Laboratory (Fermilab) particle accelerator nearby may have caught a
>long-sought second glimpse of a phenomenon that could explain one of the
>biggest puzzles in physics: Why the universe contains more matter than
>antimatter. According to long-held theories, the two types of particles
>should exist in equal amounts.
>
>Physicists got their first hint that something was amiss in these theories
>more than 30 years ago, when experimenters studying the decay of particles
>called kaons were shocked to see an effect known as CP violation, a basic
>asymmetry between kaons and antikaons. The effect had not turned up in any
>other particle, however, so physicists have wondered whether CP violation
>is a general principle of nature or somehow restricted to a single system.
>
>
>Now, Fermilab investigators may have spotted another case of CP violation
>in particles called B mesons in the form of a slight difference in the rate
>at which B mesons and anti-B mesons decay to a particular set of particles.
>Researchers studied the decays of about 200 B and anti-B mesons created in
>the debris of proton-antiproton collisions and saw B mesons decaying that
>way less frequently--but with a weak statistical confidence. "We're not
>claiming a detection," says Barry Wicklund of Argonne National
>Laboratory--just a hint of anomalous behavior.
>
>
>The evidence is tantalizing but not conclusive, adds Al Goshaw of Duke
>University and co-spokesperson of the group that conducted the experiments,
>whose paper on the work is soon to appear in Physical Review Letters. "If
>it's there, we'll see it" with more data, he says.
>
>--JAMES GLANZ
>
>
>ScienceNOW 1998 (1211): 1
>Science Online
>© 1998 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
>