Unsolved Physics Problems

 

I would add at least a couple more. 

There are false problems that ask "why doesn't the universe act like I think (for no good reason) that it should?" This includes the hierarchy problem, the strong CP problem, the baryon asymmetry of the universe, and all research invoking the concept of "naturalness."

And, there are contradictory data problems, where one asks why multiple measurements of the same thing (in your current theory) are producing irreconcilable results. These have included the proton radius puzzle, the data based calculation of muon g-2, the measurement of the mean lifetime of unbound neutrons, the reanalysis of CDF data to determine the W boson mass that produced an anomalous result, and the Hubble tension. Usually, in these cases, the answer is that somebody screwed up in one or both of the experiments (at a minimum by overstating the uncertainty in the result), or the theoretical analysis involved, but sometimes, the theory that said the measurements should be the same was wrong.

Dark Matter

From here.

Anti-De Sitter Space

Today's Notable arXiv Papers

Astrophysicists were playful this year. HEP physicists weren't feeling the love. 

Since their domestication at the dawn of civilization, cats have been known for their uncanny ability to seemingly defy gravity. We conjecture that this innate ability of cats is real: uniquely in the animal kingdom, felis catus, possibly along with a few closely related species, are indeed capable of manipulating their passive gravitational mass. We explore this idea in the context of both general relativity and quantum physics. We reach the intriguing conclusion that a close study of the behavior of cats in a gravitational field might shed light not only on the mechanism of neutrino mass mixing but perhaps even on the most fundamental question in theoretical physics: a satisfactory unification of the theory of gravitation and quantum field theory.

Viktor T. Toth, "Feline gravity manipulation" arXiv:2503.22919 (April 1, 2025).

In the big data era of Astrophysics, the improvement of visualization techniques can greatly enhance the ability to identify and interpret key features in complex datasets. This aspect of data analysis will become even more relevant in the near future, with the expected growth of data volumes. With our studies, we aim to drive progress in this field and inspire further research. We present the second release of pastamarkers, a Python-based matplotlib package that we initially presented last year. In this new release we focus on big data visualization and update the content of our first release. We find that analyzing complex problems and mining large data sets becomes significantly more intuitive and engaging when using the familiar and appetizing colors of pasta sauces instead of traditional colormaps

PASTA Collaboration, "pastamarkers 2: pasta sauce colormaps for your flavorful results" arXiv:2503.23126 (April 1, 2025).

Any permutation-invariant function of data points r⃗ i can be written in the form ρ(∑iϕ(r⃗ i)) for suitable functions ρ and ϕ. This form - known in the machine-learning literature as Deep Sets - also generates a map-reduce algorithm. The area of a triangle is a permutation-invariant function of the locations r⃗ i of the three corners 1≤i≤3. We find the polynomial formula for the area of a triangle that is explicitly in Deep Sets form. This project was motivated by questions about the fundamental computational complexity of n-point statistics in cosmology; that said, no insights of any kind were gained from these results.

Connor Hainje, David W. Hogg, "A formula for the area of a triangle: Useless, but explicitly in Deep Sets form" arXiv:2503.22786 (April 1, 2025).

Johannes Kepler's attempt to explain the arrangement of the six innermost planets of the Solar System using his Platonic Solid Model-which postulates that planetary orbits are nested within the five Platonic solids-was ultimately unsuccessful. However, while his model failed to describe our own planetary system, Kepler was remarkably prescient in hypothesizing the existence of exoplanetary systems that might conform to this geometric framework. In this study, we analyze all known multiple exoplanet systems containing three to six planets and identify those that best match the Keplerian Platonic model. Using a semi-major-axis (SMA) ratio metric defined as the sum of squared differences between observed and theoretical semi-major-axis ratios, we find that the most well-matched three-, four-, five-, and six-planet exoplanetary systems exhibit significantly lower discrepancy values (4.38×10−6,1.05×10−2,8.21×10−2, and 2.43×10−1, respectively) compared to the inner six planets of the Solar System at 12.68. These results demonstrate that Kepler's Platonic Model is applicable to certain exoplanetary systems, suggesting that while the Solar System does not adhere to this idealized structure, other planetary systems may be governed by underlying geometric and mathematical principles akin to Kepler's vision. This study highlights the special nature of these exoplanetary systems and their potential alignment with the Platonic five-element framework.

Ji Wang, "Kepler's Platonic Model and Its Application to Exoplanetary Systems" arXiv:2503.22793 (April 1, 2025).

This paper explores an unexpected yet compelling parallel between the evolution of the universe, as described by cosmological eras, and the artistic evolution of Taylor Swift, delineated by her distinct album eras. By mapping key characteristics and transitions in the universe's history to corresponding themes and milestones in Swift's career, I offer a novel perspective on both. I culminate with predictions for Swift's future work and dare to ask a question of cosmic importance: Could Taylor Swift's thirteenth album hold the secret to the universe's ultimate destiny?

Jane C. Bright, "The Eras Tour: Mapping the Eras of Taylor Swift to the Cosmological Eras of the Universe" arXiv:2503.22795 (April 1, 2025).

Understanding our place in the universe is an eternal quest. Through the analysis of the 3D structures of 66 nearby open clusters using Gaia DR3 data, we discovered an intriguing pattern: most clusters show their elongation directions pointing at the Sun, suggesting that the Solar System might just be the universe's favorite spot, a cosmic feng shui hotspot! This surprising result hints at a subtle blend of geometry and geomancy.

Lu Li, Zhengyi Shao, "On the structure of open clusters: geometric vs geomantic" arXiv:2503.22800 (April 1, 2025).

We present a novel and somewhat whimsical approach to pulsar hotspot modeling by drawing inspiration from the iconic one-eyed monster, Mike Wazowski, from Monsters, Inc. Utilizing X-ray high-quality timing data from NICER, we apply a Bayesian inference framework to model the X-ray pulse profile of PSR J0437--4715. Our analysis employs a Wazowski Configuration (WC) in which the conventional hotspot parametrization is replaced with a predefined image template, whose redness and size are adjusted to mimic temperature variations. The results reveal a configuration where two hotspots--one brighter and smaller in the north represents the energetic ``University time Wazowski", and one larger yet cooler in the south represents the ``Monster, Inc. time Wazowski"--combine to produce the observed X-ray pulse profile. These findings not only demonstrate the sensitivity of pulse profile modeling to hotspot morphology but also open up the intriguing possibility that the X-ray emission of some pulsars may be interpreted as a cosmic homage to our favorite animated character.

Chun Huang, "The Cosmic One-Eyed Smile: Revealing the Hidden Face of Mike Wazowski" arXiv:2503.22914 (April 1, 2025) (Submitting to Monster University Journal).

Cookies are enjoyed best when they are both crispy and soft. I investigate in which proportion the cookies are crispy and soft, and disentangle whether it makes them biscuits, cakes, or none of the above. I baked cookies for colleagues at KTH, Stockholm, and University of Geneva, Switzerland, adopting my mum's mum's mum's etc. recipe. I created a dedicated survey for my colleagues with three well-selected questions to answer while eating one cookie. The weighted-average mean of the crispiness and softness, weighted by the respective enjoyment of the cookie, over the whole population amount to 7.0 +/- 1.1 and 5.3 +/- 1.4, respectively. The enjoyment of the cookies amounts to 9.1 +/- 2.3. People like (my) cookies, and cookies are neither cakes, nor biscuits, they are just... cookies!

Sophie Rosu, "All about Cookies: The perfect compromise between softness and crispiness" arXiv:2503.23114 (April 1, 2025).

Catsteroseismology, or asterocatsmology, is an unexplored area of observational and theoretical research that proposes to use purr-mode oscillations to study the much-beloved but poorly-understood species Felis catus. In this work, we conduct a survey to measure fundamental purrameters of cats and relate them to their purr-modes. Relations between these fundamental cat purrameters, which include physical (eg. size, cuddliness) and personality (eg. aggression, intelligence) traits, and purr-modes can help probe their inner lives and emotions. We find that while purr characteristics tentatively trend with several physical and personality traits, more data is required to better constrain these relationships and infer the direct predictive power of personality on purr-modes, or vice versa.

Rae Holcomb, Christopher Lam, "Catsteroseismology: Survey-based Analysis of Purr-mode Oscillations Suggests Inner Lives of Cats are Unknowable" arXiv:2503.23560 (April 1, 2025).

We report the detection of whisky in the atmosphere of the extrasolar super-Earth planet GJ 1132b from transmission spectroscopic data. It is seen both in atmospheric absorption as well as in chromospheric emission, the latter probably due to the intense heating of the co-rotating planet's day-side surface. This detection cannot be explained using natural sources of alcohol, implying that there must be a technically advanced civilisation -- possibly originating from the neighboring habitable planet GJ 1132c -- that is engaged in massive distilling operations accompanied by high levels of industrial pollution. The reason for the necessarily vast scale of production is either to produce rocket fuel for an interplanetary economy or, more likely, for an unusually high level of personal consumption. The latter hypothesis suggests a novel explanation for the Fermi Paradox (the lack of indirect or direct contact with extraterrestrials): a technically versed civilisation would be incapable of achieving the higher technical levels necessary for the development of a detectable radio signature -- much less interstellar travel -- at the suggested rates of consumption.

Frederic V. Hessman, Andrew Collier Cameron, Keith Horne, "Detection of an extraterrestrial technical civilisation on the extrasolar planet GJ 1132b" arXiv:2503.23788 (April 1, 2025).

High angular resolution holds the key to extending our knowledge in several domains of astronomical research. In addition to the development of new instruments, advancements in post-processing algorithms can enhance the performances attainable in an observation, turning archival observations into a treasure. We developed a machine-learning tool, named zoom-in, that is able to improve the angular resolution of an astronomical image by a factor of ∼100 by optimally recombining short-cadence sequences of images. After training our model on real-life photographs, we tested our method on archival images of the Moon taken through ESO instruments. We were able to achieve a remarkable spatial resolution of ∼1 m of the lunar surface. While analyzing one of the fields from the sample, we discovered structures of clear anthropic origin inside the Aristarchus crater. The features appear to be consistent with ancient ruins of cities and castles. A thorough analysis of the relevant literature allowed us to conclude that this valley corresponds to the one described in Ludovico Ariosto's "Orlando Furioso": a place where all the items lost by humans gather and pile up. Analyses of the surface brightness from our images, indicating an abnormally high albedo of ∼0.25, further corroborate this idea suggesting a conspicuous presence of glass. We infer the presence of >1 billion flasks of human wits on the lunar surface, whose origin we investigate in detail. We urge for a dedicated mission, astolfo, to be carried out by Artemis astronauts in order to recover human wits and bring them back to the Earth.

Vito Squicciarini, Irina Mirova, Francis D. Anderson, Zhiyuan He, Wahman al-Khwarizmi, "Orlando's flask: detection of a lost-and-found valley on the Moon" arXiv:2503.24242 (April 1, 2025) (Submitted for publication on 1st April 2025 to the prestigious journal Acta Prima Aprilia).

The cosmological principle posits that the universe does not exhibit any specific preference for position or direction. However, it remains unclear whether the universe has a distinct preference for parity: whether certain properties are more likely to be classified as even or odd. In this study, we analyze the largest available galaxy group catalogs to explore this hypothesis: specifically, whether the number of galaxies within a galaxy group or cluster is more likely to be odd or even. Our findings convincingly indicate that the universe indeed favors odd numbers, with results achieving a significance level well above the 4.1−σ threshold.

Shiyin Shen, Nan Li, "The Universe is Odd" arXiv:2503.22839 (April 1, 2025) (This manuscript is deliberately announced on an odd-numbered date).

For generations, people have complained that things used to be better in the past. In this paper, we investigate this change by specifically looking at creativity in astronomy. To do this, we explore if older constellations reflected a greater sense of creativity on the part of those designing them than more modern constellations do. We find that things really have become simplistic and less original over time.

Michael B. Lund, "Astronomers Getting Less Creative Over Time Is Why This Title Isn't Better" arXiv:2503.23614 (April 1, 2025) (submitted to Acta Prima Aprilia).

We all love the ecstasy that comes with submitting papers to journals or arXiv. Some have described it as yeeting their back-breaking products of labor into the void, wishing they could never deal with them ever again. The very act of yeeting papers onto arXiv contributes to the expansion of the arXiverse; however, we have yet to quantify our contribution to the cause. In this work, I investigate the expansion of the arXiverse using the arXiv astro-ph submission data from 1992 to date. I coin the term "the arXiverse constant", a0, to quantify the rate of expansion of the arXiverse. I find that astro-ph as a whole has a positive a0, but this does not always hold true for the six subcategories of astro-ph. I then investigate the temporal changes in a0 for the astro-ph subcategories and astro-ph as a whole, from which I infer the fate of the arXiverse.

Joanne Tan, "Written in the Stars: How your (pens and) papers decide the fate of the arXiverse" arXiv:2503.23957 (April 1, 2025) (Published in the 2024 issue of Acta Prima Aprila. An arXiv resubmission after a year).

I report the discovery of jacquetium (0Jq), the first naturally occurring element found since more than 80 years.

Emmanuel Jacquet, "Jacquetium, a new, naturally-occurring chemical element" arXiv:2503.24030 (April 1, 2025) (Submitted to the Journal of Improbable Science, 2025 yearly (April 1) issue).

The field of astronomy evolves rapidly, and it is essential to keep up with these changes in order to effectively communicate with the broader community. However, communication itself also changes as new words, phrases, and slang terms enter the common vernacular. This is especially true for the current youngest generations, who are capable of efficiently communicating via the Internet. In order to maintain effective communication, we explore the possibility of expanding the language used in scientific communication to include recently coined slang. This attempt at outreach, while potentially very difficult, could provide a means to expand the field and capture the attention of early-career scientists, improving retention within the field. However, our results indicate that, while possible, this method of communication is, like, probably not really worth it, no cap.

Anne E Blackwell, David L Moutard, Jake A Miller, "The Rizzeta Stone: Adopting Gen-α Colloquial Language to Improve Scientific Paper Rizz and Aura from a Skibidi Perspective" arXiv:2504.00073 (April 1, 2025).

The spherical cow approximation is widely used in the literature, but is rarely justified. Here, I propose several schemes for extending the spherical cow approximation to a full multipole expansion, in which the spherical cow is simply the first term. This allows for the computation of bovine potentials and interactions beyond spherical symmetry, and also provides a scheme for defining the geometry of the cow itself at higher multipole moments. This is especially important for the treatment of physical processes that are suppressed by spherical symmetry, such as the spindown of a rotating cow due to the emission of gravitational waves. I demonstrate the computation of multipole coefficients for a benchmark cow, and illustrate the applicability of the multipolar cow to several important problems.

Benjamin V. Lehmann, "Higher multipoles of the cow" arXiv:2504.00506 (April 1, 2025) (No cows were harmed).

We present the first--ever example of a macroscopic system in a quantum superposition. The system in question is a Siamese cat known as Lola; however, on a time scale of about 12 hours it oscillates into a different state that we refer to as "Mola". In the "Lola" state, the system is sweet and friendly and allows to cuddle itself, but in the "Mola" state, it is malevolent and witchy. When the probability of the system being in the "Mola" state is high, decoherence is strongly discouraged!

Harman Deep Kaur, Mariagrazia Trapanese, Kirill Zatrimaylov, "Macroscopic "Lola/Mola" Cat State" arXiv:2503.23433 (April 1, 2025).

No Wonder Astrophysics Papers Aren't Popular

 

From Questionable Content.

Quote Of The Day

This paper is both novel and correct, but the novel part is not correct and the correct part is not novel.

From a peer review of an academic journal article attributed to physicist Wolfgang Pauli.

The Olympics In The Bronze Age

Turtles All The Way Down

From this physics preprint.

A Good Reason To Like The Mirror Universe Scenario

 

A mirror universe scenario overcomes this meme. 

Deur's approach (whether or not it modifies general relativity) also solves the conservation of mass-energy issue associated with "dark energy" using the same mechanism that he used to explain dark matter phenomena, and explains the "cosmic coincidence" problem as a bonus prize.

Sophisticated Science Denial

For those of you who aren't Young Earth Creationists (as about 0.1% of scientists and 46% of American adults are) or Flat Earthers (as essentially no scientists and 10% of American adults are), but still want to ignore consensus physics with lots of independent sources of high precision observational evidence to back it up, this more sophisticated form of science denial, that only rolls back scientific knowledge by about 120 years, may be for you.

As an aside, note that denying that space-time is non-Euclidian, a broad, theory independent observation, is a considerably stronger form of science denial than the mere scientific field of inquiry into whether General Relativity, as formulated by Einstein more than a century ago, is precisely the correct set of equations or is only a very close approximation of reality that is subtly wrong (e.g., because it is classical rather than quantum). The latter doesn't deny scientific evidence. It merely explores the full range of the possible within the constraints of what we know from experiments and scientific observations.

The percentage of the general adult public in the United States who understands that space-time itself is non-Euclidian is probably pretty low. My high, probably overoptimistic, estimate would be that 10-20% of American adults (i.e. about half of four year college graduates plus or minus) understand this fact. I make this estimate even though non-Euclidian geometry is part of the standard high school math curriculum for college bound students, and high school geometry textbooks often mention general relativity as one of the motivations for it. Spherical Earth theory and evolution are taught in K-12 education too, but the absence of scientific worldviews in those subjects is still pretty high. 

In this case, of course, the issue is mostly just lack of knowledge, rather than actual science denial. You can't deny science knowledge you never knew about in the first place. In the same vein, you can't deny the existence of quantum tunneling, or quantum entanglement, or quarks (concepts that are often first formally introduced in intermediate level undergraduate science courses), unless you've learned about these scientific discoveries in the first place and then rejected their validity.

See also, a new study on the percentage of Gen X members who believe in evolution at different ages. The study is: 

Jon D. Miller, et al., "The acceptance of evolution: A developmental view of Generation X in the United States." Public Understanding of Science (2024). DOI: 10.1177/09636625241234815

String Theory Didn't Work Out

String theory makes no predictions and has no observational support. It isn't really even really a theory so much as an approach to come up with a theory that no one has managed to set forth yet.

Eclipse Fun On Turtle Island

 

Multi-Messenger Astrology

It has long been accepted that the cosmos determine our personalities, relationships, and even our fate. Unlike our condensed matter colleagues - who regularly use quantum mechanics to determine the healing properties of crystals - astrology techniques have been unchanged since the 19th century. In this paper, we discuss how astrophysical messengers beyond starlight can be used to predict the future and excuse an O(1) fraction of our negative personality traits.

Gwen Walker, Nick Ekanger, R. Andrew Gustafson, Sean Heston, "Multi-Messenger Astrology" arXiv:2403.19749 submission for Acta Prima Aprilia (2024). 

Scientific Conference Shenanigans

Chemistry Is Awesome!

 

News You Can Use

Some more April Fool's Day humor.

Humans like to party, and New Year celebrations are a great way to do that. However New Years celebrations that rely on an orbital year don't line up with those that use a Lunar Calendar, as there are currently 12.368 synodic months (moonths) in a year. There is cyclostratigraphic, paleontological, and tidal rhythmite data that reveal that over billions of years the interplay of angular momentum between the Sun, Earth and Moon has changed the rate of rotation of Earth, and at the same time evolved the orbit of the Moon, and therefore the length of a Lunar month. Using a subset of this data and referencing literature models of the Moon's orbital evolution, we create our own simple model to determine "True Happy New Years", time periods when there were an integer number of lunar synodic months in an Earth orbital year. This would allow modern calendars to pick a shared New Year's Day, and party accordingly. We then predict the next True Happy New Year to be in 252 million years, and offer suggestions to begin the party planning process early, so that we as a planet may be ready.

Mark Popinchalk, "Party Planning the Next True Happy New Year: Lunar Orbital Evolution Epochs with Integer Synodic Months Per Year" arXiv:2303.17697 Comments: 5 pages, 1 figure, submitted for 4/1/2023 

The lower limit on the chicken density function (CDF) of the observable Universe was recently determined to be approximately 10−21 chickens pc−3. For over a year, however, the scientific community has struggled to determine the upper limit to the CDF. Here we aim to determine a reasonable upper limit to the CDF using multiple observational constraints. We take a holistic approach to considering the effects of a high CDF in various domains, including the Solar System, interstellar medium, and effects on the cosmic microwave background. We find the most restrictive upper limit from the domains considered to be 1023 pc−3, which ruffles the feathers of long-standing astrophysics theory. 

Rachel Losacco, Zachary Claytor, "Nuggets of Wisdom: Determining an Upper Limit on the Number Density of Chickens in the Universe" arXiv:2303.17626  Comments: 5 pages, 1 figure, 1 table, 0 chickens were harmed 

How many gravitational-wave observations from compact object mergers have we seen to date? This seemingly simple question has a surprisingly complex answer that even ChatGPT struggles to answer. To shed light on this, we present a database with the literature's answers to this question. We find values spanning 67-100 for the number of detections from double compact object mergers to date, emphasizing that the exact number of detections is uncertain and depends on the chosen data analysis pipeline and underlying assumptions. We also review the number of gravitational-wave detections expected in the coming decades with future observing runs, finding values up to millions of detections per year in the era of Cosmic Explorer and Einstein Telescope. We present a publicly available code to visualize the detection numbers, highlighting the exponential growth in gravitational-wave observations in the coming decades and the exciting prospects of gravitational-wave astrophysics. See this http URL We plan to keep this database up-to-date and welcome comments and suggestions for additional references.

Floor S. Broekgaarden, "ChatGPT scores a bad birdie in counting gravitational-wave chirps" arXiv:2303.17628 Comments: 1 April submission, with fun videos for visualizing the landscape of gravitational waves! (they are awesome!) See this http URL

An April Fool's Day Preprint

For much of February 2023, the world was in panic as repeated balloon-like unidentified flying objects (UFOs) were reported over numerous countries by governments that often responded with military action. As a result, most of these craft either escaped or were destroyed, making any further observation of them nearly impossible. These were not the first time balloon-like objects have loomed over Earth, nor are they likely to be the last. This has prompted us to push for a better understanding of UFOs. 

First we demonstrate that the distribution of balloon incidents and other UFO reports are consistent with being drawn from the same geographic distribution, and further that both of these distributions are consistent with the areas of the Earth that feature the jet stream. 

Second we show that there are more UFO sightings during meteor showers, as we would expect if meteor showers, already a known source of extraterrestrial material, are being used to provide some manner of distraction to help alien craft enter the Earth's atmosphere without drawing undue attention. These links between alleged balloon incidents, UFO reports, and meteor showers establish a transport pipeline for alien craft from interplanetary and possibly interstellar space to the Earth's surface.

Michael B. Lund, "UFOs: Just Hot Air or Something Meteor?" arXiv:2303.17103 (April 1, 2023) (submission for Saturday's Acta Prima Aprilia). 

Married To A Model

This year's Valentine's Day poem from 4 gravitons:

Married to a Model

If you ever face a physics class distracted,
Rappers and footballers twinkling on their phones,
Then like an awkward youth pastor, interject,
“You know who else is married to a Model?”

Her name is Standard, you see,
Wife of fifty years to Old Man Physics,
Known for her beauty, charm, and strangeness too.
But Old Man Physics has a wandering eye,
and dreams of Models Beyond.

Let the old man bend your ear,
you’ll hear
a litany of Problems.

He’ll never understand her, so he starts.
Some matters she holds weighty, some feather-light
with nary rhyme or reason
(which he is owed, he’s sure).

She’s unnatural, he says,
(echoing Higgins et al.),
a set of rules he can’t predict.
(But with those rules, all else is possible.)

Some regularities she holds to fast, despite room for exception,
others breaks, like an ill-lucked bathroom mirror.

And then, he says, she’ll just blow up
(when taken to extremes),
while singing nonsense in the face of Gravity.

He’s been keeping a careful eye
and noticing anomalies
(and each time, confronting them,
finds an innocent explanation,
but no matter).

And he imagines others
with yet wilder curves
and more sensitive reactions
(and nonsense, of course,
that he’s lived fifty years without).

Old man physics talks,
that’s certain.
But beyond the talk,
beyond the phases and phrases,
(conscious uncoupling, non-empirical science),
he stays by her side.

He knows Truth, 
in this world,
is worth fighting for.

The Lighter Side Of Gravity

I am a dad, so I am allowed to tell dad jokes.

Lepton Universality Violations Have Disappeared With Improved LHC Data

It looks like the tensions suggesting lepton universality violations in B meson decays (contrary to the Standard Model prediction) have disappeared with improved amounts of data and improved data quality at the LHC, according to two preprints released today, in another glorious (but unexciting) victory for the Standard Model of Particle Physics.

The first simultaneous test of muon-electron universality using B+→K+ℓ+ℓ− and B0→K∗0ℓ+ℓ− decays is performed, in two ranges of the dilepton invariant-mass squared, q2. The analysis uses beauty mesons produced in proton-proton collisions collected with the LHCb detector between 2011 and 2018, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 9 fb−1. Each of the four lepton universality measurements reported is either the first in the given q2 interval or supersedes previous LHCb measurements. The results are compatible with the predictions of the Standard Model.

LHCb collaboration, "Test of lepton universality in b→sℓ+ℓ− decays" arXiv:2212.09152 (December 18, 2022) (All figures and tables, along with any supplementary material and additional information, are available at this https URL (LHCb public pages)).

A simultaneous analysis of the B+→K+ℓ+ℓ− and B0→K∗0ℓ+ℓ− decays is performed to test muon-electron universality in two ranges of the square of the dilepton invariant mass, q2. The measurement uses a sample of beauty meson decays produced in proton-proton collisions collected with the LHCb detector between 2011 and 2018, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 9 fb−1. A sequence of multivariate selections and strict particle identification requirements produce a higher signal purity and a better statistical sensitivity per unit luminosity than previous LHCb lepton universality tests using the same decay modes. Residual backgrounds due to misidentified hadronic decays are studied using data and included in the fit model. Each of the four lepton universality measurements reported is either the first in the given q2 interval or supersedes previous LHCb measurements. The results are compatible with the predictions of the Standard Model.

LHCb collaboration, "Measurement of lepton universality parameters in B+→K+ℓ+ℓ− and B0→K∗0ℓ+ℓ− decays" arXiv:2212.09153 (December 18, 2022) (All figures and tables, along with any supplementary material and additional information, are available at this https URL (LHCb public pages).

The announcement of the result generated this meme: