Discovering True Muonium

20世纪最重要的智力成就之一是粒子物理学标准模型（SM）的发展。这个模型成功地将当时已知的所有基本粒子划分为具有相似量子特性的等级。迄今为止，该模型的有效性已被位于瑞士日内瓦附近的欧洲核子研究中心（CERN）实验室的大型强子对撞机（LHC）发现的希格斯玻色子所证实。然而，目前存在的标准模型留下了许多关于宇宙的问题。这些问题包括为什么物质在宇宙中支配反物质（CP违反），物质的基本成分、夸克和轻子的质量值，夸克之间和轻子之间混合的大小，以及暗物质的性质。大多数解释需要新的力的存在和概念的发展，这些概念现在构成了我们所说的超越标准模型（BSM）的物理学。该奖项支持那些解决主导BSM物理学问题的研究。这项研究将在大型强子对撞机上进行，它是世界上首屈一指的高能物理粒子加速器，也是回答这些BSM问题的最重要的设施之一。LHCb是第一个专门设计用于研究强子对撞机中含有b或c夸克的强子衰变的实验。LHCb的目标是通过检测含有这些夸克的强子的性质来识别自然界中的新物理。新的物理或新的力是由尚未发现的粒子表现出来的，它们将改变衰变速率和CP违反不对称，从而允许间接观察到新的现象。该奖项将允许研究大型强子对撞机中重夸克系统的罕见衰变。这项工作将集中在低质量电子和介子对上，在那里BSM可以表现出来。新升级的LHCb探测器现在允许前所未有的数据水平，为理解最近轻子普适性的异常提供了新的途径。这个新的数据集将允许搜索暗光子和其他新的光粒子，并可能发现真正的介子，介子和反介子的束缚态。该奖项还将允许在粒子物理和社会背景下开发一种新的课程来理解隐性偏见。本课程面向高中生、本科生和研究生。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

One of the major intellectual achievements of the 20th century was the development of the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics. This model succeeded in classifying all of the elementary particles known at the time into a hierarchy of groups having similar quantum properties. The validity of this model to date has been confirmed by the discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the CERN laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland. However, the Standard Model as it currently exists leaves open many questions about the universe. These include why matter dominates over anti-matter in the Universe (CP violation), the values of the masses of the fundamental constituents of matter, the quarks and the leptons, the size of the mixings among the quarks, and separately among the leptons, and the properties of dark matter. Most explanations require the presence of new forces and the development of concepts that now constitute what we call physics Beyond the Standard Model (BSM). This award supports research that addresses those questions that dominate BSM physics. The research will be carried out at the LHC, which is the premier High Energy Physics particle accelerator in the world and one of the foremost facilities for answering these BSM questions. LHCb is the first experiment designed specifically to study the decays of hadrons containing b or c quarks at a hadron collider. The goal of LHCb is to identify new physics in nature by examining the properties of hadrons containing these quarks. New physics, or new forces, are manifest by particles, as yet to be discovered, which would modify decay rates and CP violating asymmetries, and thus allow new phenomena to be observed indirectly. This award will allow the study of rare decays of heavy quark systems in LHCb. The work will concentrate on low mass electron and muon pairs where BSM could manifest itself. The newly upgraded LHCb detector now allows unprecedented data levels providing new paths to understanding recent anomalies in lepton universality. This new data set will allow a search for dark photons and other new light particles and possibly discover true muonium, a bound state of a muon and an anti-muon. This award will also allow the development of a novel curriculum for understanding implicit bias, both in the context of particle physics and society. This course will be taught to high school, undergraduate, and graduate students.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.