Analysis of Precision Electroweak Measurements Homepage

"I see dead theories.
They don't know they're dead.
They only see what they want to see.
They're everywhere ..." *

Introduction

The greatest achievement of theoretical particle physics in the 20th century has been the creation of the Standard Model. The 21st century can be expected to be the century in which the Standard Model is explained and replaced by a more fundamental theory. The search for the heir to the Standard Model has been ongoing for some time but all the contenders to the throne, including Technicolor and Supersymmetry, have so far failed to measure up. Recent additions to the fray are string inspired models with large compact extra dimensions whose qualifications are just beginning to be analyzed.

The most important criterion for an acceptable successor to the Standard Model is that the new theory does not conflict with existing data. In other words, that it is not dead on arrival. Of the existing data, the so called Precision Electroweak Measurements are the most accurate and provide the tightest constraints to new physics. These include the measurement of the Z-pole parameters by LEP and SLD, neutrino scattering measurements by CCFR/NuTeV, atomic parity violation experiments, etc. In this page, we will discuss how these data can be used to constrain a variety of theories.