RE: Hunting for leptoquarks at CERN's Large Hadron Collider

Happy Birthday!!! Happy New Year's. One thing I come away with is that in theoretical physics, anomalies point to the possibility, the suggestion of something beyond the standard model.

Several points stay with me: leptoquarks are hypothetical, and yet important to understanding what may exist beyond the standard model. They must decay almost instantly,as soon as they are created, "or cosmology would be in big trouble". And, it is easier to create pairs of leptoquarks than single leptoquarks, because the strong force is used to create pairs and that naturally creates more than the weak force would.

Finally, everything is dependent on data. The more accurate the data, the more reliable the predictions. Data today is much more predictable than it was in the 90s.

I think, for a single class in physics I have learned a lot, more than I mention here. Slowly I am filling in critical gaps. A great deal may be beyond me, but overall I think I'm getting 'it'--the thrust of your work, the motivation behind and direction of theoretical physics.

It's really amazing that we have you here on Hive. You open the universe to us.

I hope you have had a wonderful birthday, @lemouth.

Thanks a lot for your wishes! I had a very nice (offline) evening yesterday with the family, to celebrate a new multiple of ten ;)

What you summarised in your message is correct. Anomalies, as well as conceptual issues and limitations of the Standard Model point that something else should be around, not too far from the current frontier of knowledge. Concerning leptoquarks, let's say that other options for physics beyond the Standard Model are quite appealing too. For now, it is impossible to say that one is better than another (preferences are only a matter of taste). My approach here is to be as open as possible and study all possibilities (which also guarantee to learn as many new things as possible).

Regarding precision, one thing that is inherent to high-energy physics is that we have error bars both on measurements (as for any measurement in fact) and on theory calculations. Therefore, it is important to make progress on both sides so that both error bars could be reduced as much as possible. Having a super precise measurement for which there is no as precise theoretical prediction is useless as we would not be able to tell whether there is an agreement or a disagreement. And vice versa, having precise predictions but only approximate measurements won't help.

Cheers, and have a great day!