The Fifth Force
Hungarian researchers claim to have discovered a new elementary particle. The story of a controversial discovery.
It is unimaginably small: a point in the microcosm, like all elementary particles. But the specter they call X17 must also be extremely selective, extremely shy and surprisingly powerful: when it appears, it rocks the world of atomic nuclei as the messenger of a fifth, previously unknown force.
But do they and X17 really exist? Someone who wants to find out sits in the Hungarian city of Debrecen, in one of the country's leading physics institutes, and sighs. Attila Krasznahorkay is a reserved man, shy, modest and polite, 66 years old, more of a librarian than a ghost hunter by type."We have to be very careful," he says quietly.
For the Hungarian physicist, the search began 20 years ago when his Dutch colleague Fokke de Boer called and enthusiastically talked about the new particle. At first Krasznahorkay was skeptical, had documents sent to him, and weighed things up. Then he agreed. "At the time I thought the matter would be settled in a week."
Today the Hungarian is still around and has become something of the leader of the hunt. In his office at the Atomki Research Institute, he has spread out several carefully stapled technical papers, the afternoon sun falling through the blinds. He points his finger at a small bump in a measurement curve, less than three centimeters high. The trail of X17, Krasznahorkay and his team believe. "It's a tiny deviation."
New elementary particles are rarely discovered in physics…
