Finding the next big theory of everything will require updating our current best model of all existing particles and forces. Researchers just put new bounds on 132 possible ways to do such an update, opening the doors for new experiments at the frontier of known physics. In the 1900s, physicist Hendrik Lorentz argued that experiments involving electric charges must look the same in all frames of reference.
This means such experiments taking place in a room ought to give the same result whether the room is stationary, moving at constant speed or has been rotated through some angle, such as during Earth’s rotation about its axis. Later, Albert Einstein built this idea into his theory of special relativity. This eventually cemented the place of “Lorentz symmetry” in the standard model of particle physics, which is currently our best explanation for the behaviour of all known particles and forces other than gravity.
Could we eliminate any particles from the standard model of physics? But we now know of phenomena that the standard model fails to fully explain, such as dark matter and dark energy. This has sent researchers looking for ways to upgrade or amend it.
One possible path towards a new model starts with looking for novel quantum fields that violate Lorentz’s argument. Researchers tabulated all such theoretical candidates in the standard model extension (SME) in the late 1990s, identifying 132 that would most likely appear in near-term experiments. Now, for the first time, Jay Tasson at Carleton College in Minnesota and his colleagues have calculated just how precisely researchers ought to look for every single one of those 132 candidates.
Tasson says that searching for Lorentz violations is akin to identifying some special direction in the universe such that moving in this direction or rotating through it changes the outcome of an experiment. This would be similar to noticing that a pencil that usually falls to the ground when placed against the vertical surface of your palm in fact remains in contact with your hand when you move in a particular direction, because of the influence of some new force. If such a direction is discovered, it would strongly hint that subatomic particles are interacting with a previously unknown quantum field – an entity that extends through all space and interacts with nearby objects, similar to the electromagnetic fields that fill our homes.
Mathematically, the search becomes like a jigsaw puzzle – researchers have to fit a hypothetical missing field, or fields, into the standard model without disturbing the parts of the model that have been proven to work well. These are particles that comprise all matter and most commonly feature in high-precision experiments. Special relativity can warp chemical bonds – now we’ve seen it happen Accordingly, the analysis referenced experiments with rotating helium and potassium atoms where properties of their protons and neutrons had been carefully measured, and others where electrons were studied within a pendulum that would theoretically twist, or rotate on its thread, because of some novel force.
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