科学家们可能发现了第五种自然力

科学家们可能发现了第五种自然力

Scientists say they may have found a fifth force of nature and moved a step closer to understanding the workings of the universe.

科学家们表示，他们可能已经发现了第五种自然力，并向了解宇宙运行机制又迈进了一步。

Researchers at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences say they have detected a new particle behaving in ways that cannot be explained using current models.

匈牙利科学院的研究人员表示，他们发现了一种新的粒子，其行为方式无法用当前的模型来解释。

The team achieved the results by watching the way in which an excited helium atom emitted light as it decayed.

研究小组通过观察一个被激发的氦原子在衰变过程中发光的方式，得出了这一结果。

An atom is said to be “excited” if any of its electrons are not orbiting in their lowest-possible energy level.

如果一个原子的任何一个电子不在其可能的最低能级轨道上运行，那么这个原子就被称为“激发的”。

When an electron returns to its lowest orbital, or “decays”, some of its energy is released in the form of smaller particles or photons of light.

当一个电子回到它的最低轨道或“衰变”时，它的一些能量以更小的粒子或光子的形式释放出来。

Scientists can measure the angles at which those particles or photons are emitted and use the data to study the forces governing the process.

科学家可以测量这些粒子或光子发射的角度，并利用这些数据来研究控制这一过程的力量。

The Hungarian researchers observed a particle being emitted at an angle – 115 degrees – not explained by the so-called Standard Model of particle physics.

匈牙利的研究人员观察到一种粒子以115度的角度发射，这种角度无法用所谓的粒子物理标准模型来解释。

They believe they have discovered a new particle, dubbed X17 because it has a mass of 17 megaelectronvolts and say it could be indicative of a fifth force at work in the universe.

他们相信他们已经发现了一种新的粒子，被命名为X17，因为它的质量为17兆电子伏特，并表示这可能是宇宙中第五种力在起作用的迹象。

There are four fundamental forces – gravity, electromagnetism, the weak nuclear force and the strong force – currently known to exist.

目前已知存在四种基本力——重力、电磁力、弱核力和强核力。

“No-brainer Nobel prize”

.“显而易见的诺贝尔奖”

The study’s lead scientist, Attila Krasznahorkay, told CNN: “X17 could be a particle, which connects our visible world with the dark matter.”

该研究的首席科学家Attila Krasznahorkay告诉CNN:“X17可能是一种粒子，它将我们的可见世界与暗物质联系起来。”

Dark matter is a form of matter thought to account for about 85 percent of all the matter in the universe but whose existence has only been inferred from scientific observations.

暗物质是一种物质形式，被认为占宇宙中所有物质的85%，但其存在只能从科学观察中推断出来。

Krasznahorkay’s team’s result comes three years after they published a similar finding from an experiment conducted with another type of atom named beryllium-8.

三年前，Krasznahorkay的团队发表了一项类似的发现，该发现来自于对另一种名为铍-8的原子的实验。

Fellow scientists assumed the results must be a mistake, but have been unable to find any mistakes in the team’s work or in the way the experiment was conducted.

其他科学家认为这个结果一定是错误的，但他们一直未能在团队的工作或实验的进行方式中发现任何错误。

Geraint Lewis, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Sydney told ABC News: “What it’s telling us if it is correct is that there is something going on in the way that one particle talks to another particle that we haven’t got inside our mathematics at the moment.”

悉尼大学(University of Sydney)天体物理学教授吉兰特·刘易斯(Geraint Lewis)告诉美国广播公司新闻网(ABC News):“如果它是正确的，它告诉我们的是，一个粒子与另一个粒子之间的对话方式正在发生一些变化，而我们目前的数学中还没有这些变化。”

Jonathan Feng, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Irvine, told CNN that, if the observations are correct, the chances they are the result of something other than particle X17 and a fifth force, are one in a trillion.

加州大学欧文分校(University of California, Irvine)的物理学和天文学教授乔纳森·冯(Jonathan Feng)告诉CNN，如果观测结果是正确的，那么它们不是由X17粒子和第五力造成的可能性是万亿分之一。

He added that if any group could repeat the results with a third atom, it “would blow the cover off this thing”.

他补充说，如果任何一个小组可以用第三个原子重复这个结果，“将会揭开这一神秘面纱”。

“This would be a no-brainer Nobel Prize,” he said.

“这将是一个毋庸置疑的诺贝尔奖。”他说。