What explains the CDF W mass measurement disagreement? · revision history
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Accepted · first revision · record
- Title
- What explains the CDF W mass measurement disagreement?
- Plain
- In 2022 the CDF experiment reported a W boson mass well above the SM prediction. Later measurements at the LHC agree with the SM, leaving the CDF result unexplained.
- Precise
- CDF (2022) measured $m_{W} = 80433.5 \pm 9.4\,\mathrm{MeV}$, about $7\,\sigma$ above the electroweak fit $80357 \pm 6\,\mathrm{MeV}$; ATLAS (2024, $80366.5 \pm 15.9\,\mathrm{MeV}$) and CMS (2024, $80360.2 \pm 9.9\,\mathrm{MeV}$) agree with the SM. Identify the source of the CDF discrepancy (PDF, recoil modeling, detector calibration) or show it reflects new physics.
- Settled by
- A joint Tevatron-LHC reanalysis with common PDFs and modeling, plus further LHC and future $e+e-$ threshold measurements of $m_W$.
- Kind
- well-posed
- Answer type
- identification
- References
- (empty)
- Literature status
- partially-resolved
- Status note
- After the 2024 CMS result the SM value is favored; the CDF disagreement has no accepted explanation.
- Posed since
- 2022