Brookhaven Lecture

A very precise measurement of the intrinsic magnetism of the muon, a subatomic particle, was performed at Brookhaven Laboratory nearly two decades ago. The result generated considerable interest within the particle physics community, because the measured value disagreed with the predicted value. Is it a hint of long-sought new physics or just a statistical fluctuation? To determine which one, substantial efforts have been undertaken both on theoretical and experimental fronts. The new experiment at Fermilab, which uses Brookhaven's storage ring, has recently confirmed the Brookhaven result, leaving the disagreement between theory and experiment unresolved. The discrepancy between theory prediction and measurement can be due to yet to be discovered subatomic particle. Even though the muon g-2 experiment cannot detect the new particle directly, it can measure its effect on the muon magnetism.
This which provides a valuable guidance to theory development and future experiments. The lecture will introduce the muon g-2 experiment, review principles and a brief history of measurements, describe the experiment at Fermilab, talk about Brookhaven Lab's roles and leadership both in new measurements at Fermilab and on the theory front, and discuss the future of muon g-2 studies.