A simple symmetry as a guide toward new physics beyond the Standard Model

Understand

There exists one experimental result that cannot be explained by the Standard Model (SM), the current theoretical framework for particle physics: non-zero masses for the neutrinos (elementary particles travelling close to light speed, electrically neutral and weakly interacting).

• The SM assumes that they are massless.
• Therefore, particle physicists are now exploring new physics beyond the SM.
• There is strong anticipation that we are about to unravel it, in the form of new matter and/or forces, at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), presently running at CERN.