LHCb – ParticleBites

Just before the 2022 holiday season LHCb announced it was giving the particle physics community a highly anticipated holiday present : an updated measurement of the lepton flavor universality ratio R(K). Unfortunately when the wrapping paper was removed and the measurement revealed, the entire particle physics community let out a collective groan. It was not shiny new-physics-toy we had all hoped for, but another pair of standard-model-socks.

A picture of an opened present with a plot of LHCb's measurement photoshopped on. — A disappointing present from LHCb, their recent measurement of R(K) (black points and error bars) showed very good agreement with the standard model prediction (red line).

The particle physics community is by now very used to standard-model-socks, receiving hundreds of pairs each year from various experiments all over the world. But this time there had be reasons to hope for more. Previous measurements of R(K) from LHCb had been showing evidence of a violation one of the standard model’s predictions (lepton flavor universality), making this triumph of the standard model sting much worse than most.

R(K) is the ratio of how often a B-meson (a bound state of a b-quark) decays into final states with a kaon (a bound state of an s-quark) plus two electrons vs final states with a kaon plus two muons. In the standard model there is a (somewhat mysterious) principle called lepton flavor universality which means that muons are just heavier versions of electrons. This principle implies B-mesons decays should produce electrons and muons equally and R(K) should be one.

But previous measurements from LHCb had found R(K) to be less than one, with around 3σ of statistical evidence. Other LHCb measurements of B-mesons decays had also been showing similar hints of lepton flavor universality violation. This consistent pattern of deviations had not yet reached the significance required to claim a discovery. But it had led a good amount of physicists to become #cautiouslyexcited that there may be a new particle around, possibly interacting preferentially with muons and b-quarks, that was causing the deviation. Several hundred papers were written outlining possibilities of what particles could cause these deviations, checking whether their existence was constrained by other measurements, and suggesting additional measurements and experiments that could rule out or discover the various possibilities.

Feynman diagrams of the relevant b to sll transition in the Standard Model (top) and two scenarios of new particles (bottom) — Feynman diagrams showing the decay of a b quark into a strange quark and two leptons in the Standard Model (top). Two scenarios of new particles which could alter how often such an interaction occurs are shown in the bottom row: a new gauge boson (bottom left) and a leptoquark (bottom right).

This had all led to a considerable amount of anticipation for these updated results from LHCb. They were slated to be their final word on the anomaly using their full dataset collected during LHC’s 2nd running period of 2016-2018. Unfortunately what LHCb had discovered in this latest analysis was that they had made a mistake in their previous measurements.

There were additional backgrounds in their electron signal region which had not been previously accounted for. These backgrounds came from decays of B-mesons into pions or kaons which can be mistakenly identified as electrons. Backgrounds from mis-identification are always difficult to model with simulation, and because they are also coming from decays of B-mesons they produce similar peaks in their data as the sought after signal. Both these factors combined to make it hard to spot they were missing. Without accounting for these backgrounds it made it seem like there was more electron signal being produced than expected, leading to R(K) being below one. In this latest measurement LHCb found a way to estimate these backgrounds using other parts of their data. Once they were accounted for, the measurements of R(K) no longer showed any deviations, all agreed with one within uncertainties.

Plots showing two of the signal regions of for the electron channel measurements. The previously unaccounted for backgrounds are shown in lime green and the measured signal contribution is shown in red. These backgrounds have a peak overlapping with that of the signal, making it hard to spot that they were missing.

It is important to mention here that data analysis in particle physics is hard. As we attempt to test the limits of the standard model we are often stretching the limits of our experimental capabilities and mistakes do happen. It is commendable that the LHCb collaboration was able to find this issue and correct the record for the rest of the community. Still, some may be a tad frustrated that the checks which were used to find these missing backgrounds were not done earlier given the high profile nature of these measurements (their previous result claimed ‘evidence’ of new physics and was published in Nature).

Though the R(K) anomaly has faded away, the related set of anomalies that were thought to be part of a coherent picture (including another leptonic branching ratio R(D) and an angular analysis of the same B meson decay in to muons) still remain for now. Though most of these additional anomalies involve significantly larger uncertainties on the Standard Model predictions than R(K) did, and are therefore less ‘clean’ indications of new physics.

Besides these ‘flavor anomalies’ other hints of new physics remain, including measurements of the muon’s magnetic moment, the measured mass of the W boson and others. Though certainly none of these are slam dunk, as they each causes for skepticism.

So as we begin 2023, with a great deal of fresh LHC data expected to be delivered, particle physicists once again begin our seemingly Sisyphean task : to find evidence physics beyond the standard model. We know its out there, but nature is under no obligation to make it easy for us.

Paper: Test of lepton universality in b→sℓ+ℓ− decays (arXiv link)

Authors: LHCb Collaboration

The W Mass Anomaly

Deep underground, on the border between Switzerland and France, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is starting back up again after a 4 year hiatus. Today, July 5th, the LHC had its first full energy collisions since 2018. Whenever the LHC is running is exciting enough on its own, but this new run of data taking will also feature several upgrades to the LHC itself as well as the several different experiments that make use of its collisions. The physics world will be watching to see if the data from this new run confirms any of the interesting anomalies seen in previous datasets or reveals any other unexpected discoveries.

New and Improved

During the multi-year shutdown the LHC itself has been upgraded. Noticably the energy of the colliding beams has been increased, from 13 TeV to 13.6 TeV. Besides breaking its own record for the highest energy collisions every produced, this 5% increase to the LHC’s energy will give a boost to searches looking for very rare high energy phenomena. The rate of collisions the LHC produces is also expected to be roughly 50% higher previous maximum achieved in previous runs. At the end of this three year run it is expected that the experiments will have collected twice as much data as the previous two runs combined.

The experiments have also been busy upgrading their detectors to take full advantage of this new round of collisions.

The ALICE experiment had the most substantial upgrade. It features a new silicon inner tracker, an upgraded time projection chamber, a new forward muon detector, a new triggering system and an improved data processing system. These upgrades will help in its study of exotic phase of matter called the quark gluon plasma, a hot dense soup of nuclear material present in the early universe.

A diagram showing the various upgrades to the ALICE detector (source)

ATLAS and CMS, the two ‘general purpose’ experiments at the LHC, had a few upgrades as well. ATLAS replaced their ‘small wheel’ detector used to measure the momentum of muons. CMS replaced the inner most part its inner tracker, and installed a new GEM detector to measure muons close to the beamline. Both experiments also upgraded their software and data collection systems (triggers) in order to be more sensitive to the signatures of potential exotic particles that may have been missed in previous runs.

The new ATLAS ‘small wheel’ being lowered into place. (source)

The LHCb experiment, which specializes in studying the properties of the bottom quark, also had major upgrades during the shutdown. LHCb installed a new Vertex Locator closer to the beam line and upgraded their tracking and particle identification system. It also fully revamped its trigger system to run entirely on GPU’s. These upgrades should allow them to collect 5 times the amount of data over the next two runs as they did over the first two.

Run 3 will also feature a new smaller scale experiment, FASER, which will study neutrinos produced in the LHC and search for long-lived new particles.

What will we learn?

One of the main goals in particle physics now is direct experimental evidence of a phenomena unexplained by the Standard Model. While very successful in many respects, the Standard Model leaves several mysteries unexplained such as the nature of dark matter, the imbalance of matter over anti-matter, and the origin of neutrino’s mass. All of these are questions many hope that the LHC can help answer.

Much of the excitement for Run-3 of the LHC will be on whether the additional data can confirm some of the deviations from the Standard Model which have been seen in previous runs.

One very hot topic in particle physics right now are a series of ‘flavor anomalies‘ seen by the LHCb experiment in previous LHC runs. These anomalies are deviations from the Standard Model predictions of how often certain rare decays of the b quarks should occur. With their dataset so far, LHCb has not yet had enough data to pass the high statistical threshold required in particle physics to claim a discovery. But if these anomalies are real, Run-3 should provide enough data to claim a discovery.

A summary of the various measurements making up the ‘flavor anomalies’. The blue lines and error bars indicate the measurements and their uncertainties. The yellow line and error bars indicates the standard model predictions and their uncertainties. Source

There are also a decent number ‘excesses’, potential signals of new particles being produced in LHC collisions, that have been seen by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations. The statistical significance of these excesses are all still quite low, and many such excesses have gone away with more data. But if one or more of these excesses was confirmed in the Run-3 dataset it would be a massive discovery.

While all of these anomalies are gamble, this new dataset will also certainly be used to measure various known entities with better precision, improving our understanding of nature no matter what. Our understanding of the Higgs boson, the top quark, rare decays of the bottom quark, rare standard model processes, the dynamics of the quark gluon plasma and many other areas will no doubt improve from this additional data.

In addition to these ‘known’ anomalies and measurements, whenever an experiment starts up again there is also the possibility of something entirely unexpected showing up. Perhaps one of the upgrades performed will allow the detection of something entirely new, unseen in previous runs. Perhaps FASER will see signals of long-lived particles missed by the other experiments. Or perhaps the data from the main experiments will be analyzed in a new way, revealing evidence of a new particle which had been missed up until now.

No matter what happens, the world of particle physics is a more exciting place when the LHC is running. So lets all cheers to that!

CERN Run-3 Press Event / Livestream Recording “Join us for the first collisions for physics at 13.6 TeV!“

Symmetry Magazine “What’s new for LHC Run 3?”

CERN Courier “New data strengthens RK flavour anomaly“

Tag: LHCb

LHCb’s Xmas Letdown : The R(K) Anomaly Fades Away

The LHC is on turning on again! What does that mean?

New and Improved

What will we learn?