Thursday, May 24, 2007, 16:00
WHGA Auditorium
A. Höcker, CERN
Abstract:
The muon anomalous magnetic moment (g-2)/2 is a quantity that solely exists
due to quantum fluctuations in the vacuum. It is dominated by contributions
from quantum electrodynamics, but also small effects from strong and weak
interactions are present. These can be made visible by means of ultra-precise
measurements at a level of less than one part per million. Such a measurement
has been recently carried out at Brookhaven. Through comparison with the
theoretical prediction, one hopes to find deviations and to hence uncover
contributions from unknown physics beyond the Standard Model of particle
interactions. However, the precision challenge not only on the experimental
but also the theoretical side. The theoretical prediction of (g-2)/2 is
defied by the fundamental difficulty to determine the contribution from
strong interaction. The colloquium introduces the theoretical problem, and
discusses the present status of the calculation.