New force of nature discovered? Is this the God Particle?

BBC NEWS

A particle accelerator in the US has shown compelling hints of a never-before-seen particle, researchers say.

The find must be more fully confirmed, but researchers at the Tevatron are racing to work through existing data.

If proved, it will be a completely new, unanticipated particle; researchers say it cannot be the much sought-after Higgs boson.

It could also signal a new fundamental force of nature, and the most radical change in physics for decades.

Researchers at the Tevatron formally announced the find on the collaboration's website, after posting an as-yet unreviewed account of the research on the Arxiv repository.

The team was analysing data from collisions between protons and their anti-matter counterparts antiprotons. In these collisions, particles known as W bosons are produced, along with a pair of "jets" of other particles.

It was in these jets that the unexpected "bump" in the team's data came to light, potentially representing a particle that the current understanding of the zoo of subatomic particles - the Standard Model - does not include.

"When you look at the data it's not some disagreement with the Standard Model, it's a nicely formed bump in the distribution that looks really like the kind of bump you'd get if a new particle was being exchanged in this process," said Dan Hooper, a theoretical physicist at Fermilab who was not involved in the research.

'Time will tell'
However, the result is at what is known as the "three-sigma" level of certainty; that means there is still about a tenth of a percent chance that the result is attributable to some statistical fluctuation in the data.

For a formal discovery, the level is traditionally taken to be five-sigma - or about a one-in-a-million chance that the "bump" is just a fluke. However, Dr Hooper said, the result comes from data taken at one of the Tevatron's two detectors, called CDF and DZero.


Results from the D0 detector should confirm or refute the find
"Even without running the machine one more day, they have roughly twice as much data at one of the two experiments, and if you include... DZero, then you have four times as much," he told BBC News.

That means that confirming the result more fully is simply a matter of working through the numbers the team already have to hand. Further, the coming experimental run at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) should provide even more data to confirm or refute the new particle - whatever it is.

All that is clear is that the bump definitely does not represent the unwitting star of high-energy physics, the Higgs boson - the hunt for which has popularly been pitched as a race between the Tevatron and the LHC.

"If it's a real effect, rather than a fluctuation or a mismodelling of the background, it would be much more exciting than a standard model Higgs - or any type of Higgs," said Tony Weidberg, a physicist from Oxford University who works on the LHC's Atlas instrument.

However, he told BBC News that he did not "find this evidence very convincing", though he reiterated that a more definitive answer would be soon in coming.

"I've been doing this for 30 years now, and every few years we get these three-sigma effects - they come and then they go. Time will tell."

Dr Hooper is more optimistic on the basis of the current result alone.

"There's a 0.1% chance that this is a statistical fluke," he said. "Other than that possibility that lingers, this is the most exciting new phyiscs we've learned about in my lifetime."

If it is in fact true, Dr Hooper believes that the mystery particle represents an undiscovered "fundamental force".

"We'd essentially be saying there's a new force of nature being communicated by the particle. We know that there's four forces: electromagnetism, gravity, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. This would be the fifth; every freshman physics class would have to change their textbooks."

RELATED GOD PARTICLE

Breaking : F-18 crashes in California- Crew- dead

(CNN) -- Two crew members on a routine training flight were killed Wednesday when an F/A-18F aircraft crashed near Naval Air Station Lemoore in central California, the U.S. Navy said.

Capt. James Knapp, commanding officer of the station, told reporters the plane, assigned to Strike Fighter Squadron 122, crashed at 12:08 p.m. PT (3:08 p.m. ET) in a private farm field about one half mile west of the property line.

The crash of the two-seat strike fighter, which occurred southwest of Fresno, is under investigation, Knapp said.

The names of the Super Hornet crew, a pilot and weapons system operator, were being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

"I ask that you have your thoughts and prayers for the families, friends and shipmates of these two fine Naval officers," Knapp said. "That you remember they represent the very best of this nation."
An active-duty mechanic not authorized to speak on behalf of the Navy told CNN he witnessed the incident.

He heard the jet flying and suddenly "it got really quiet," he said. The F/A-18F pilot apparently tried to bank left and pull up when the plane crashed into a field, he said. "We didn't see any seats punch out."

The F/A-18 Hornet, an all-weather aircraft, is used as an attack aircraft as well as a fighter, according to the Navy.

The U.S. Navy flew EA-18 Growlers, which are special versions of the F/A-18 fighter designed to jam enemy electronic signals, in the early phase of the no-fly-zone operation imposed upon the Libyan military of Col. Moammar Gadhafi, according to the Navy.

"Quit trying to kill me - best of luck in your reelection campaign - Love Moammar

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has appealed directly to President Barack Obama to halt what the Libyan leader called "an unjust war," and wished Obama good luck in his bid for re-election next year.

In a rambling, three-page letter to Obama obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, Gadhafi implored Obama to stop the NATO-led air campaign, which the Libyan called an "unjust war against a small people of a developing country."

"You are a man who has enough courage to annul a wrong and mistaken action," Gadhafi wrote in the letter that was sent to the State Department and forwarded immediately to the White House, according to a U.S. official who has seen the letter. "I am sure that you are able to shoulder the responsibility for that."

"To serving world peace ... Friendship between our peoples ... and for the sake of economic, and security cooperation against terror, you are in a position to keep Nato (NATO) off the Libyan affair for good," Gadhafi wrote.

READ THE REST OF THE STORY HERE AT AP.

"Missed it by that much" space debris has lousy aim.

Tracking data now indicates that a piece of orbital debris being monitored by Mission Control Houston will not pass close enough to the International Space Station to warrant the Expedition 27 crew members taking safe haven within their Soyuz TMA-20 spacecraft.

Mission Control gave the crew the all-clear at 2:41 p.m. EDT as the space station orbited 220 miles above eastern Asia.

Flight controllers have been monitoring the debris from the Chinese FENGYUN 1C satellite since early this morning, and informed Commander Dmitry Kondratyev at 7:01 a..m. EDT that the station crew would need to begin the shelter procedures if it remained on track.

The time of closest approach was at 4:21 p.m. EDT.

For more information about orbital debris and how the International Space Station team tracks and responds to threats, visit:

Space Junk threatens Space Station

(CNN) -- NASA is monitoring a piece of space junk that could come close enough to collide with the International Space Station, a spokesman for the space agency said Tuesday.

Plans are being made for the station's crew of three to take shelter in the Russian Soyuz capsule if necessary, Kelly Humphries said.
The junk is a piece of a Chinese satellite that was destroyed in 2007. It is expected to be near the space station at 4:21 p.m. ET.

A decision will be made around 3 p.m. whether the crew will need to seek safety aboard the Soyuz.

The current space station team is made up of NASA astronaut Cady Coleman, Russian cosmonaut Dmitry Kondratyev and European Space Agency astronaut Paolo Nespoli.