Re: Gee G-2 is wrong!

[Jack Uretsky <jlu@HEP.ANL.GOV>]

Hi all-
        I've been waiting for this.  The Brookhaven press-release raises
some credibility problems, which I'll write about when I have time.  But
for starters, not many experimentalists will stake a claim of new physics
on a 2.6 sigma effect with a year of data yet to analyze.  Further, the
most uncerain part of the theoretical value is not part of the standard
model of electroweak interactions.
                                        Regards,
                                                Jack
On Mon, 12 Feb 2001, Robert B Zannelli wrote:

> Dear List Members:
>          The hot piece of news last week came out of Brookhaven labs. In an
> experiment that measures the precession rate of a polarized beam of muons
> traveling in a magnetic field, it now appears that with a 99 percent
> certainty that the predictions of the standard model are incorrect.
>           Brookhaven lab was investigating a property called the positive
> muon anomalous moment. While a basic calculation puts this value at 2 a more
> detailed calculations with takes into considerations all the possible virtual
> processes give a value slightly greater than 2. However due to the results
> obtained at Brookhaven we have now most likely observed a result which does
> not agree with standard model predictions. One of the exciting possible
> explanations for this is that we are seeing the signature of virtual
> Supersymmetry particles. If this is so than this might be the first
> experimental confirmation of a theory beyond the standard model. Also another
> possible explanation might be that the muon is a composite particle, an
> equally exciting possibility.
>    All this is pretty preliminary and it will take about a year of data
> analysis to be sure some systematic effect has not been overlooked. However
> the Physicist involved are claiming a 99 percent confidence level for their
> finding.
>
> Bob Zannelli

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