Is the particle age of physics coming to an end

The discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 was an important turning point in particle physics, marking the completion of the Standard Model of particle physics. However, the Standard Model cannot answer all questions in physics, so since the discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), physicists have been searching for physics beyond the Standard Model and identifying future directions in physics.

Robert Harlander and Jean-Philippe Martinez of the Institute for Theoretical Particle Physics and Cosmology at RWTH Aachen University, Germany, and Gregor Schiemann of the Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies at the University of Wuppertal, Germany, published a paper in The European Physical Journal H), a paper exploring the possibility that particle physics may be on the verge of a new era of discovery and understanding of particle physics; the paper also explores the implications of many possible scenarios for the future of high-energy physics.

The paper says that over the past century, the concept of particles has become fundamental in the field of physics. "It has undergone major evolutions at different times, opening up new avenues for particle observation and thus for the discovery of new particles. Currently, observing particles requires the production of particles."

A particle is said to be on-shell if its mass, energy and momentum are combined in some way (E²=m²c²+p²c⁴), "in the sense of today's discovery of new particles, the latter need to be in an on-shell state in experiments, at least for a short time. "

Martinez and the other authors argue in their paper that all new particles may be too heavy for on-shell production, which means that particle physics will have to undergo yet another evolution in particle observation-perhaps even in the concept of particles itself.

Time evolution of the energy range of particle colliders

Electro-weak fit and the unitarity triangle

"Particle physics is currently in a very special period. We still have to face the possibility that the era of particle discovery as we know it today is over. We have shown that particle physics has already undergone many evolutionary steps, and that the next such step may be ahead of us. However, as with previous developments, this change is likely to come from particle physics itself."

Reference link:

[1]https://link.springer.com/article/10.1140/epjh/s13129-023-00053-4

[2] https://phys.org/news/2023-07-particle-era-physics.html