Physics & Engineering Physics Colloquium

Christopher Aubin, Ph.D., associate professor of physics at Fordham University, will present, “Established 1936: The particle that began and could end the Standard Model.”

During the 20th century, there was an explosion of new particles discovered, so many that it took decades for physicists to formulate what is now known as the Standard Model of Particle Physics (the most successful physical theory in current history). This explosion began with the tiny spark that is the muon — a heavy cousin of the electron — because it was the first completely unexpected particle that led I.I. Rabi to quip, “Who ordered that?” Since then, the muon has played a vital role in high energy physics to understand how the Standard Model works and more recently, to search for physics beyond the Standard Model: new physics yet to be understood. I will give a brief history of the muon while then focusing on current studies of this subatomic particle to find out if we can break this fundamental theory of particle physics.