Prof. Mark Lancaster FRS
Particle Physics Group
Department of Physics & Astronomy
spacer

I am presently working on two muon experiments that are seeking to establish evidence for physics beyond the Standard Model (SM) of Particle Physics.

The Fermilab Mu2e experiment is hoping to be the first experiment to observe a lepton-flavour violating, neutrinoless transition of a muon into an electron. Such an observation would be certain to signal new physics beyond our present understanding of fundamental particles since in the SM the rate of this decay is approximately 10-50 that of the usual muon decay producing two neutrinos.

The Fermilab Muon g-2 experiment has made the world's most precise measurement of any quantity at a particle accelerator: the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon (g-2), with a precision of 0.2 ppm. This presently differs from the SM predictions by 2 to 5 standard deviations depending on the methodology used to determine the SM value. Subsequent measurements and refinements in the SM prediction will establish unambigiously whether this is a sign of new physics or not.