The latest results from the LHC on the 750 GeV "bump" in the data is scheduled to be released at a conference which begins on August 3, 2016, a week from yesterday.
This "bump" which now appears to have been nothing more profound than a statistical fluke, spawned intense interest from the theoretical physics community that resulted in publication of more than five hundred journal article pre-prints in the span of just a few months (see also here in a post at this blog of the same name as this one).
The rumor mill has it that the results will not involve a 5 sigma "discovery" threshold finding and will probably show declining statistical significance. Indeed, the rumor is that the 750 GeV "bump" is basically dead (as I predicted it would be on this blog when the results were first announced). But, of course, we'll have a far more precise answer soon.
The minimal model of the Standard Model together with General Relativity with a cosmological constant continues to reign supreme, explaining pretty much everything except dark matter phenomena. Light sterile neutrinos are essentially ruled out too.
Add to this the failure of direct detection experiments and of satellites trying to detect dark matter annihilation signatures (and a lot of other data) is putting tight constraints on any particle based dark matter solution and ruling out conventional SUSY WIMPS. Not all dark matter particles are ruled out yet, however, and no really wholeheartedly convincing true quantum gravity theory to explain dark matter phenomena is in place either, even though some intriguing efforts has been made on that front.
More confirmation of the rumor: http://motls.blogspot.com/2016/07/hawking-brexit-wealth-and-apocalypse.html
ReplyDelete"The minimal model of the Standard Model together with General Relativity with a cosmological constant continues to reign supreme"
ReplyDeleteSometimes I feel that I'm the only one who is truly happy about this.
I'm with you. While obviously, I'd like to see a quantum gravity theory that integrates the two, I am happy that it looks like we may very well have discovered all of the fundamental particles that exist and all of the fundamental forces that exist, with a set of equations and constants that can fit on an XXL t-shirt. We may have to tinker a bit, but we're close and that's great.
ReplyDeleteI just wrote two posts on those issues: There is a limit for dishonesty (https://medium.com/@Tienzen/there-is-a-limit-for-dishonesty-c3217c39b05c#.5hxcva7z4) and Before the CERN LHC 2016 data release (https://medium.com/@Tienzen/before-the-cern-lhc-2016-data-release-7fdb0eba4ace#.vtyjdqdxq).
ReplyDeleteThe big papers will be announced Friday morning at 9 a.m. central time. Today is just registration for the conference with no papers presented.
ReplyDelete