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Physics

CERN measurement casts doubt on shocking W boson result

A 2022 measurement of the mass of the W boson threatened to upend particle physics as we know it, but new results from CERN indicate the standard model was right all along

By Leah Crane

25 March 2023

The ATLAS detector at the LHC

The ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider

The ATLAS Collaboration

A tantalising discrepancy from the standard model of particle physics hasn’t persisted in new results from CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC). While the previous result created a frenzy of hypotheses about new particles and adjustments to the standard model that could account for the discrepancy, there is growing evidence that it was not quite correct.

In 2022, researchers analysing archival data from the now-shuttered Tevatron collider in Illinois found that a fundamental particle called the W boson seemed to be …

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