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On W-mass measurements and what they mean

On W-mass measurements and what they mean

Monday, May 2, 2022 at 4:00 pm
Hybrid: Wngr 328 and Zoom: https://oregonstate.zoom.us/j/97833069694?pwd=QURYZG84aXhTTk5mYm5NOFBPOEpBQT09
Heidi Schellman, Oregon State University
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abk1781 The CDF collaboratiion at FermiLab made the news recently with a new measurement of the mass of the W boson. Heidi Schellman participated in some of the previous measurements and will discuss the implications for the Standard Model of particle physics, explaining what the standard model predicts, why it is so hard measure ithe W mass, what sorts of things particle physicists do to ensure that the results are accurate, how they talk about errors and what this result means for future theory and experiements. Bio: Heidi Schellman is Professor of Physics at Oregon State Unviversity, https://physics.oregonstate.edu/heidi-schellman , Her research interest is in the intersection of strong and weak interactions of elementary particle, and she was part of a W-mass experiment at the Tevatron Proton-Anti-proton collider. Her current research program consists of the MINERvA and DUNE experiments at Fermilab which are searching for evidence of CP violation in neutrino scattering, which may explain the matter-anti-matter asymmetry in the Universe. MINERvA is doing a careful study of strong interaction effects in neutrino scattering which will lead to better understanding of precision CP violation physics when DUNE comes online in the mid 2020’s. She was recently honored with the OSU College of Science Gillfilan Award.
Janet Tate