Electric dipole moments of elementary particles - Essay Example

A significant increase in experimental sensitivity surged with over 106 factor4 improvement. Figure 1 below shows an impressive breakthrough in said improvement in the experimental sensitivity. This improvement was for about 8 years.5 Yet, despite all these improved pursuits, no electric dipole moment was observed. Why do some scientists still spend so much time and effort looking for an EDM, something that is almost deemed a lost cause? Lamareoux and Golub6 believe that the reason why many physicists are quite obsessed in in searching for the EDM is that the observation of a non-zero neutron electric dipole moment is proof of time reversal violation that goes over and beyond the electro-weak interactions called “Standard Model”.

A vital point is that the standard model predictions of time reversal violation’s magnitude are not consistent with the existing ideas about the formation of our universe. The production of what is presently seen as matter/antimatter asymmetry needs time reversal violation that has many orders of magnitude more than what is forecasted by the standard model. Figure 1. Sensitivity of neutron EDM experiments over time. On the left of the graph are some theoretical predictions of the magnitude of the neutron EDM.

The electric dipole moments could easily offer to the world of physics one of the, if not the most thrilling prospects for its progress, particularly in particle physics. This could easily spell a bright future awaiting prospective experimentations that has something to do with the EDM calculations. Golub and Huffman7 has been very precise on what physicists and scientists expect to find when it comes to the search for neutron electric dipole moments by saying that such search for nEDM could easily represent a good hope for understanding and learning Physics well beyond the Standard Model (SM) since finding any non-zero neutron electric dipole moment would be a strong proof of the breakdown of the SM.

The C, P and T The reversal of space coordinates, or the so-called parity P, T or the time reversal invariance and C, the charge conjugation are the three significant symmetry principles in the field of nuclear science. In particle physics, these three have a crucial role in understanding weak forces and weak interactions. These 3 symmetries are also the main points in understanding if a nucleus is behaving differently when the spatial configuration becomes reversed (P),or if time’s direction is made to run in a backward direction instead of the usual forward direction (T), or should the nucleus’ matter particles are changed to antimatter particles (C).

”8 In a CP symmetry, the charge conjugation turns a particle into its reverse or its anti-particle. Likewise, parity creates an object’s mirror image. It has been an accepted fact in science that physical laws are unchangeable or invariant when undergoing parity transformation. Time, charge and space are nuclear properties that are reserved or reflected in mirror-like changes in symmetry properties. In the natural universe, it is but expected that mirror symmetries or inverses to exist. Since parity symmetry is valid for all reactions that involve strong forces and electromagnetism, the fundamental conservational laws such as conservation of momentum and conservation of energy also include parity conservation.

However, two physicists, Chen Ning Yang and Tsung-Dao Lee, contradicted