High-precision measurement of the W boson mass with the CDF II detector

2022/04/07 by T. Aaltonen, S. Amerio, D. Amidei +97 · 1 voice · 10 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies

paper · doi:10.1126/science.abk1781

openalex publication_date 2022/04/07 · openalex created_date 2022/04/15 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/03

Abstract

The mass of the W boson, a mediator of the weak force between elementary particles, is tightly constrained by the symmetries of the standard model of particle physics. The Higgs boson was the last missing component of the model. After observation of the Higgs boson, a measurement of the W boson mass provides a stringent test of the model. We measure the W boson mass, M W , using data corresponding to 8.8 inverse femtobarns of integrated luminosity collected in proton-antiproton collisions at a 1.96 tera–electron volt center-of-mass energy with the CDF II detector at the Fermilab Tevatron collider. A sample of approximately 4 million W boson candidates is used to obtain <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mrow> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>M</mml:mi> <mml:mi>W</mml:mi> </mml:msub> <mml:mo>=</mml:mo> <mml:mn>80</mml:mn> <mml:mo>,</mml:mo> <mml:mn>433.5</mml:mn> <mml:mo>±</mml:mo> <mml:msub> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>6.4</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mtext>stat</mml:mtext> </mml:mrow> </mml:msub> <mml:mo>±</mml:mo> <mml:msub> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>6.9</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mtext>syst</mml:mtext> </mml:mrow> </mml:msub> <mml:mo>=</mml:mo> <mml:mn>80</mml:mn> <mml:mo>,</mml:mo> <mml:mn>433.5</mml:mn> <mml:mo>±</mml:mo> <mml:mn>9.4</mml:mn> <mml:mtext> MeV</mml:mtext> <mml:mo>/</mml:mo> <mml:msup> <mml:mi>c</mml:mi> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:msup> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> , the precision of which exceeds that of all previous measurements combined (stat, statistical uncertainty; syst, systematic uncertainty; MeV, mega–electron volts; c , speed of light in a vacuum). This measurement is in significant tension with the standard model expectation.

Citations

• Observation of a new particle in the search for the Standard Model Higgs boson with the ATLAS detector at the LHC
• Bremsstrahlung and Pair Production in Condensed Media at High Energies
• Partial-symmetries of weak interactions
• New CTEQ global analysis of quantum chromodynamics with high-precision data from the LHC
• Review of Particle Physics

Cited by

• Embeddings of the Standard Model in E₈
• Rare Higgs Decay into a Photon and a Z Boson in Radiatively-Driven Natural Supersymmetry
• The Muon Magnetic Moment and Physics Beyond the Standard Model
• Neutrino oscillations and PMNS matrix in gauge-Higgs unification
• Non-holomorphic Contributions in GMSB with Adjoint Messengers
• Modeling Uncertainties on the Z Boson Background in the Context of High Precision W Boson Mass Measurements
• Constraining new physics effective interactions via a global fit of electroweak, Drell-Yan, Higgs, top, and flavour observables
• Evidence for and implications of a dark photon
• Constraints on the dark sector from electroweak precision observables
• Status of the W boson mass and the future of the electroweak fit in the next decades

Discussions

• For the W-Boson, this stiffness causes the decay electron to rebound with +76 MeV more momentum than expected. The "anomaly" isn't a mistake. It is the vacuum pushing back. The Data: High-precision [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]