The world of the teeny-tiny may have a favorite flavor. Before you go imagining itsy-bitsy chocolate bars, understand that the world of quantum particles is split into 3 camps, called “flavors” (don’t ask why).
The electrons represent one flavor, and the muon and tau particles are the other two. Science has long believed that all three flavors should be equal. However, years of collider experiments are suggesting that this is not the case.
In the Standard Model, the three flavors interact with the Higgs boson. The more a flavor interacts with the Higgs, the greater its mass. But otherwise nature doesn’t differentiate between them, hence the prediction that all flavors should appear equally in all interactions. So why would the tau particle seem to be the favorite?
One suggestion is that perhaps there is more than one type of Higgs boson, one to provide masses to electrons and muons, and the other which is especially partial to tau.
Another theory is that there are extra particles we have yet to discover, or maybe even some new force of nature that only appears in these rare interactions. We just don’t have all the data as yet.
