Recently, there has been a lot of excitement on a new discovery in quantum physics about the beauty quark, with headlines ranging from new particles, to new forces, to new physics altogether. But what actually is this new discovery?
A beauty quark is actually just a bottom quark, the third generation heavy quark in the standard model. According to this model of particle physics, bottom quarks should decay via the weak force into electrons and muons(second generation electrons) in equal amounts. This rule is called lepton universiality, which states that electrons, muons, and tau all behave the same way and should be produced in equal ratios.
However, recent studies have shown an unqual ratio of muons and electrons after a beauty quark decays, with more electrons being produced. This suggests an oversight in the standard model, and has led to the numerous theories about new particles or new forces.
One interesting theory proposes the idea of a new particle, called a “leptoquark”, a boson(force carrier particle) which shares properties with both leptons and quarks. This particle could then have a “preference” for decaying into electrons and cause the unequal ratio we have observed.
For more info on this topic:
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edvdzh9Pggg (Beauty Quark info begins at 47:30, but there is a ton of extra info about the standard model in general)