Why Wall Street just hiked its Canadian oilsands outlook for the first time in five years

Record-breaking production predicted for the rest of this decade

Author of the article:

Pamela Heaven

Published May 26, 2023  • 

Oil, steam and natural gas pipelines run to an oilsands operation near Cold Lake, Alberta. Canadian oilsands production is expected to increase to 3.7 million barrels per day by 2030. PHOTO BY TODD KOROL /REUTERS

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They call it the “era of optimization.”

And it’s why, for the first time in five years, Wall Street analytics firm S&P Global Commodity Insights is raising its outlook for Canada’s oilsands.

Oilsands production is now expected to reach 3.7 million barrels per day by 2030, half a million bpd more than today and 140,000 more than last year’s forecast.

Last year it didn’t look like either energy security fears or higher crude prices were having much effect on oilsands production, wrote Celina Hwang, director of North American crude oil markets, and Kevin Birn, Canadian oil markets chief analyst, who authored the report.

“A year later, one might conclude that the response to higher prices just took longer than anticipated to have their usual effect,” they said.

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Capital expenditures in 2022 reached their highest level since 2015 among the four largest oilsands producers and could go higher in 2023, they said. However, much of this went to keeping up with inflation and not to building new projects.

What will be driving oilsands growth this time around is not new mega-projects but rather improving efficiency and optimizing output, they said.

“The Canadian oilsands have entered an ‘era of optimization’,” said Birn. “Learning by doing and step-out optimizations account for nearly 90 per cent of our overall production outlook.”

The remaining 10 per cent comes from removing bottlenecks that limit production flow.

Birn said the last time oil prices were this high the oilsands saw a surge in development. This time by optimizing its already large base of assets producers can materially increase output while maintaining the capital discipline investors want

“Higher oil prices have driven record returns for the Canadian oilsands,” said Hwang. “Although producers continue to demonstrate capital discipline, stronger balance sheets are now giving oilsands companies renewed confidence in regard to their intentions for capital spending.”

S&P Global expects Canada to continue to post record oil production for the rest of the decade. Output growth will start to slow in the mid to late 2020s, and a “very shallow decline” will only begin to emerge in the early 2030s. It will be particularly shallow because of the long, flat production typical of the oilsands, the analysts said.

Oil prices have retreated lately over concerns about demand in the slowing global economy. But the International Energy Agency says market pessimism is in stark contrast to its forecast of a tighter market in the second half of this year, where it expects demand to exceed supply by almost 2 million bpd.

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The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) predicts investment in oil and gas production in Canada will jump by 11 per cent this year to hit $40 billion. Oilsands investment is seen reaching $11.5 billion.

As well, the completion this year of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion is expected to offer producers an extra 590,000 barrels per day of export capacity.

The only fly in the ointment to S&P’s outlook could be a federal cap on oilsands emissions.

“If the emissions targets prove too stringent, and unattainable by the industry, then further investment — however modest — could be at risk,” Hwang and Birn wrote.

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Capital Economics

Community rallies to protect endangered ‘crazy ugly’ fish only found in B.C.

NOT UGLY AT ALL,SCARY YES, UGLY NO

By Elizabeth McSheffrey  Global News

Posted May 27, 2023 

There's a rare fish species that exists only on Vancouver Island and nowhere else in the world. The endangered species was discovered in Morrison Creek nearly two decades ago and as Aaron McArthur reports, the fight to protect its habitat is only now coming to a conclusion – May 27, 2023

An ancient, endangered jawless fish that can only be found in British Columbia is now safer, thanks to the efforts of concerned citizens, private donors and a handful of partnering organizations.

A unique form of freshwater lamprey, endemic to the Morrison Creek Headwaters in K’omoks First Nation territory, was discovered in the region more than 30 years ago.

Since then, local advocates have been trying to protect the privately-owned land by raising the funds to buy it, and recently raked in more than $500,000 to seal the deal.

“It’s just that story of persistence, the way British Columbians love their backyard and are willing to fight for it,” said Andy Day, CEO of the BC Parks Foundation. “It’s just one of those jewels.”

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The protected area of the Morrison Headwaters is seen in a map next to Comox Lake and Cumberland, B.C. Environmental organizations, concerned citizens, private donors and others have recently fundraised enough to buy the land, protecting it from industry forever. Submitted

According to the foundation, the 715-acre headwaters of the Morrison Creek watershed are home to bears, cougars, deer, mink, beaver, medicinal plants, and one of the most productive natural salmon runs in the region.

There are 13 species at risk in the area in addition to year-long, spring-fed creeks that are resistant to drought. Its star, however, is the lamprey, which Day describes as a “crazy ugly-looking” fish, first found by a woman named Carly Palmer while out with her family.

Lampreys are primitive eel-like carnivores with a funnel-type mouth full of sharp little teeth. They have no bone or scales, just cartilage, and begin life as larvae.

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The Morrison Creek lamprey is seen in spring of 2005 in a photo by Jim Palmer, published in the federal government’s Species At Risk Act 2006 recovery strategy for the fish.

Prior to their protection, 680 acres of the watershed were zoned for heavy industry, but its owner, Manulife Investment Management, was willing to sell it.

The B.C. Parks Foundation partnered with Comox Valley Land Trust, building on the work of the Palmer-Gemmell family, to fundraise for it.

Environment and Climate Change Canada, the Sitka Foundation, the Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation, the Pacific Salmon Foundation, the Courtenay Fish and Game Protective Association, and BC Hydro’s Fish and Wildlife Compensation Program all added to the crowdfunding pot.

“We’ll work with the regional district there and it will become a regional nature reserve,” said Day, whose organization aims to protect 25 valuable places and 25 per cent of land and sea in the province by 2025.

“Parks are for everyone and so is the opportunity to create more parks and give back, regardless of your means … there’s no greater gift, great legacy.”

5:22Decision looming for open-net fish farming

Jan Gemmell, whose daughter Carly found the “weird little fish” later identified as the lamprey, said it’s a “really special” place that supports a “huge diversity of wildlife.”

Gael Arthur, who was on the board of the Comox Valley Land Trust in 2016 and 2017, said it wasn’t easy to protect the headwaters, given the cost. She helped secure 22 hectares in 2019 at an unprecedented price for their organization, before the massive fundraising campaign kicked off to buy the rest.

“The community really, really came to the party,” she said Friday. “It brings tears to my eyes, thinking what we’ve been able to do as a little community … we all care about the environment.”

NOW THIS IS UGLY

CN, TCRC Ratify Collective Agreement

Written by Carolina Worrell, Senior Editor

Photograph Courtesy of CN, via Twitter

CN announced May 26 that the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC), which represents approximately 6,000 locomotive engineers, conductors, yard conductors, and yard coordinators working on the railroad’s mainline, short lines and yards, has ratified its collective agreement with the Class I.

The union initially reached a tentative agreement with CN on April 23.

“We are pleased that TCRC members have ratified the collective agreement reached earlier this year,” said CN President and CEO Tracy Robinson. “We thank the TCRC leadership for their engagement throughout this process. We remain committed to working with this important group to ensure continued service for our customers and improved working conditions for our team members.”

In related news, TCRC on Dec. 23 ratified a new collective agreement with CN, covering approximately 160 rail traffic controllers in Canada.

 

Antarctic alarm bells: Observations reveal deep ocean currents are slowing earlier than predicted

by Kathy Gunn, Matthew England and Steve Rintoul, The Conversation

Credit: Steve Rintoul, Author provided

Antarctica sets the stage for the world's greatest waterfall. The action takes place beneath the surface of the ocean. Here, trillions of tons of cold, dense, oxygen-rich water cascade off the continental shelf and sink to great depths. This Antarctic "bottom water" then spreads north along the sea floor in deep ocean currents, before slowly rising, thousands of kilometers away.

In this way, Antarctica drives a global network of ocean currents called the "overturning circulation" that redistributes heat, carbon and nutrients around the globe. The overturning is crucial to keeping Earth's climate stable. It's also the main way oxygen reaches the deep ocean.

But there are signs this circulation is slowing down and it's happening decades earlier than predicted. This slowdown has the potential to disrupt the connection between the Antarctic coasts and the deep ocean, with profound consequences for Earth's climate, sea level and marine life.

Our new research, published today in the journal Nature Climate Change, uses real-world observations to decipher how and why the deep ocean around Antarctica has changed over the past three decades. Our measurements show the overturning circulation has slowed by almost a third (30%) and deep ocean oxygen levels are declining. This is happening even earlier than climate models predicted.

We found melting of Antarctic ice is disrupting the formation of Antarctic bottom water. The meltwater makes Antarctic surface waters fresher, less dense, and therefore less likely to sink. This puts the brakes on the overturning circulation.

Now that’s a waterfall: dense water flowing from the continental shelf into the deep ocean in the Ross Sea. Consortium for Ocean-Sea Ice Modelling in Australia (COSIMA) and National Computational Infrastructure.

Why does this matter?

As the flow of bottom water slows, the supply of oxygen to the deep ocean declines. The shrinking oxygen-rich bottom water layer is then replaced by warmer waters that are lower in oxygen, further reducing oxygen levels.

Ocean animals, large and small, respond to even small changes in oxygen. Deep-ocean animals are adapted to low oxygen conditions but still have to breathe. Losses of oxygen may cause them to seek refuge in other regions or adapt their behavior. Models suggest we are locked in to a contraction of the "viable" environment available to these animals with an expected decline of up to 25%.

Slowdown of the overturning may also intensify global warming. The overturning circulation carries carbon dioxide and heat to the deep ocean, where it is stored and hidden from the atmosphere. As the ocean storage capacity is reduced, more carbon dioxide and heat are left in the atmosphere. This feedback accelerates global warming.

Reductions in the amount of Antarctic bottom water reaching the ocean floor also increases sea levels because the warmer water that replaces it takes up more space (thermal expansion).

Signs of a worrying change

Making observations of bottom water is challenging. The Southern Ocean is remote and home to the strongest winds and biggest waves on the planet. Access is also restricted by sea ice during winter, when bottom water forms.

Freshening of shelf waters reduces the flow of dense water and slows the deepest parts of the overturning circulation while also reducing deep oxygenation. Credit: Kathy Gunn, Author provided

This means observations of the deep Southern Ocean are sparse. Nevertheless, repeated full-depth measurements taken from ship voyages have provided glimpses into the changes underway in the deep ocean. The bottom water layer is getting warmer, less dense and thinner.

Satellite data shows the Antarctic ice sheet is shrinking. Ocean measurements taken downstream of regions of rapid melt show the meltwater is reducing the salinity (and density) of coastal waters.

These signs point to a worrying change, but there are still no direct observations of the deep overturning circulation.

What did we do?

We combined different types of observations in a new way, taking advantage of each of their strengths.

The full-depth measurements collected by ships provide snapshots of ocean density, but are usually repeated about once a decade. Moored instruments, on the other hand, provide continuous measurements of density and speed, but only for a limited time at a particular location.

Antarctic ice mass loss over the last few decades based on satellite data, showing that between 2002 and 2020, Antarctica shed an average of ~150 billion metric tonnes of ice per year, adding meltwater to the ocean and raising sea-levels. Credit: NASA

We developed a new approach that combines ship data, mooring records, and a high resolution numerical simulation to calculate the strength of Antarctic bottom water flow and how much oxygen it transports to the deep ocean.

Our study focused on a deep basin south of Australia that receives bottom water from several sources. These sources lie downstream of large meltwater inputs, so this region is likely to provide an early warning of climate-induced deep ocean changes.

The findings are striking. Over three decades, between 1992 and 2017, the overturning circulation of this region slowed by almost a third (30%) causing less oxygen to reach the deep. This slowing was caused by freshening close to Antarctica.

We found this freshening reduces the density and volume of Antarctic bottom water formed, as well as the speed at which it flows.

The observed slowdown would have been even greater if not for a short-lived climate event that drove a partial and temporary recovery of bottom water formation. The recovery, driven by increased salinity, further illustrates the sensitivity of bottom water formation to salinity changes on the Antarctic continental shelf.

Worryingly, these observations show that changes predicted to occur by 2050 are already underway.

Abyssal ocean warming driven by Antarctic overturning slowdown. Credit: Matthew England and Qian Li

What next?

Ice loss from Antarctica is expected to continue, even accelerate, as the world warms. We are almost certain to cross the 1.5℃ global warming threshold by 2027.

More ice loss will mean more freshening, so we can anticipate the slowdown in circulation and deep oxygen losses will continue.

The consequences of a slowdown will not be limited to Antarctica. The overturning circulation extends throughout the global ocean and influences the pace of climate change and sea level rise. It will also be disruptive and damaging for marine life.

Our research provides yet another reason to work harder—and faster—to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Journal information: Nature Climate Change

Provided by The Conversation 

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Earth's deep ocean oxygen levels are declining, shows study

  

GENERATING HYDROGEN PEROXIDE FOR DISINFECTING WATER USING A SOLAR-DRIVEN CATALYST

 Maya Posch

HACKADAY
May 26, 2023

Ensuring that water is safe to use and consume can be a real chore, especially for those who live in impoverished areas without access to safe drinking water. Here is where researchers at Stanford University hope that their recently developed low-cost catalyst can make a difference. This catalyst comes in the form of nano-sized particles (nanoflakes) consisting out aluminium oxide, molybdenum sulfide, copper and iron oxide. When exposed to sunlight, the catalyst performs like a photon-sensitive semiconductor/metal junction (Cu-MoS2), with the dislodged electrons going on to react with the surrounding water, resulting in the formation of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and hydroxy radicals

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Disinfectant powder is stirred in bacteria-contaminated water (upper left). The mixture is exposed to sunlight, which rapidly kills all the bacteria (upper right). A magnet collects the metallic powder after disinfection (lower right). The powder is then reloaded into another beaker of contaminated water, and the disinfection process is repeated (lower left). (Image credit: Tong Wu/Stanford University)

Waterborne diseases are very common, with even the US reporting 7,000 deaths and 120,000 hospitalizations in 2021, according to the US CDC, and many more affected worldwide. Much of the harm is done by microbes, in particular bacteria such as E. coli, which are prolific in aquatic environments. By using this catalyst powder in contaminated water, the researchers reported that the Escherichia coli colonies in the tested samples were fully eradicated after a 60 second exposure to sunlight.

The reason for this is that hydrogen peroxide and similar reactive oxygen species are highly destructive to living cells, yet they are simultaneously very safe. Because of their high reactivity they are very unstable and thus short-lived. This is useful when the water with the now very dead microbes is consumed afterwards, with the catalyst itself being ferromagnetic and thus easily separated using a magnet.

With this proof of concept in hand, it’d be interesting to see what the product will look like, especially when it comes to the final separation step and making this as easy as possible. Since the catalyst is not consumed or presumably contaminated, it can last pretty much forever, making it an attractive alternative to water purification tablets and expensive filtration systems.

(Heading image: Microscopic images of E. coli before (left) and after disinfection. The bacteria died quickly after sunlight produced chemicals that caused serious damage to the bacterial cell membranes, as shown in the red circles. 

(Image credit: Tong Wu/Stanford University) )

From Forgotten Formula to Climate Game Changer: A New Tool for Converting Carbon Dioxide

By CORNELL UNIVERSITY MAY 27, 2023

Scientists at Cornell University have re-purposed the 120-year-old Cottrell equation to understand the reactions carbon dioxide undergoes when subjected to electrochemistry, with the goal of converting the gas into useful products. The researchers believe that the classic equation can help electrochemists control the reactions to create desirable products like ethylene, ethane, or ethanol, effectively transforming an environmental issue into a renewable resource.

Scientists from Cornell University have revisited a century-old electrochemical equation, the Cottrell equation, to aid in the conversion of atmospheric carbon dioxide into a functional product, and in managing this greenhouse gas.

This equation, which bears the name of chemist Frederick Gardner Cottrell who devised it in 1903, now serves as a valuable tool for modern-day researchers. By applying electrochemistry in a controlled lab environment, scientists can gain a clearer comprehension of the diverse reactions that carbon dioxide can undergo.

The electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide presents an opportunity to transform the gas from an environmental liability to a feedstock for chemical products or as a medium to store renewable electricity in the form of chemical bonds, as nature does.

Their work was published in the journal ACS Catalysis.

The Cottrell equation is a fundamental equation in electrochemistry that describes how the current associated with the reduction or oxidation of a redox species decreases with time during chronoamperometry, a technique where the potential between a working electrode and a reference electrode is abruptly changed and the resulting current is measured over time. Named after Frederick Gardner Cottrell, it states that the current is inversely proportional to the square root of time, provided that diffusion is the only operative mode of mass transport.

“For carbon dioxide, the better we understand the reaction pathways, the better we can control the reaction – which is what we want in the long term,” said lead author Rileigh Casebolt DiDomenico, a chemical engineering doctoral student at Cornell under the supervision of Prof. Tobias Hanrath

“If we have better control over the reaction, then we can make what we want, when we want to make it,” DiDomenico said. “The Cottrell equation is the tool that helps us to get there.”

The equation enables a researcher to identify and control experimental parameters to take carbon dioxide and convert it into useful carbon products like ethylene, ethane, or ethanol.

Many researchers today use advanced computational methods to provide a detailed atomistic picture of processes at the catalyst surface, but these methods often involve several nuanced assumptions, which complicate direct comparison to experiments, said senior author Tobias Hanrath.

“The magnificence of this old equation is that there are very few assumptions,” Hanrath said. “If you put in experimental data, you get a better sense of truth. It’s an old classic. That’s the part that I thought was beautiful.”

DiDomenico said: “Because it is older, the Cottrell equation has been a forgotten technique. It’s classic electrochemistry. Just bringing it back to the forefront of people’s minds has been cool. And I think this equation will help other electrochemists to study their own systems.”

Reference: “Mechanistic Insights into the Formation of CO and C2 Products in Electrochemical CO2 Reduction─The Role of Sequential Charge Transfer and Chemical Reactions” by Rileigh Casebolt DiDomenico, Kelsey Levine, Laila Reimanis, Héctor D. Abruña and Tobias Hanrath, 27 March 2023, ACS Catalysis.
DOI: 10.1021/acscatal.2c06043

The study was funded by the National Science Foundation, a Cornell Energy Systems Institute-Corning Graduate Fellowship and the Cornell Engineering Learning Initiative.

Plants perform quantum mechanics feats that scientists can only do at ultra-cold temperatures

Plants at room temperature show properties we had only seen near absolute zero.

Credit: ChrWeiss / Adobe Stock

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Bose-Einstein condensates, also known as the fifth state of matter, are when bosons occupy the same quantum state, essentially acting as a single atom.

 

Excited electrons and the spaces they leave behind, known as holes, can act together as bosons, creating exciton condensates.

 

There may be a link between exciton condensates and photosynthesis, which could explain why plants are so effective at converting light to food.

It is spring now in the Northern Hemisphere, and the world has greened around us. Outside my window, trees are filled with leaves that act as miniature factories, collecting sunlight and converting it into food. We know this basic transaction takes place, but how does photosynthesis really happen?

During photosynthesis, plants utilize quantum mechanical processes. In an attempt to understand how plants do this, scientists at the University of Chicago recently modeled the workings of leaves at the molecular level. They were blown away by what they saw. It turns out that plants act like a strange, fifth state of matter known as a Bose-Einstein condensate. Even stranger is that these condensates are typically found at temperatures near absolute zero. The fact that they are all around us on a normal, temperate spring day is a real surprise.
States of low energy

The three most common states of matter are solid, liquid, and gas. When either pressure or heat is added or removed, a material can shift between these states. We often hear that plasma is the fourth state of matter. In a plasma, atoms break down into a soup of positively charged ions and negatively charged electrons. This typically occurs when a material is super-heated. The Sun, for example, is mostly a big ball of super-hot plasma. If matter can be superheated, it can also be supercooled, causing particles to fall into very low energy states. Understanding what happens next requires some knowledge of particle physics.

There are two main types of particles, bosons, and fermions, and what differentiates them is a property called spin — a weird, quantum-mechanical characteristic that relates to the particle’s angular momentum. Bosons are particles with integer spin (0, 1, 2, etc), while fermions have a half-integer spin (1/2, 3/2, etc). This property is described by the spin-statistics theorem, and it means that if you swap two bosons, you will retain the same wave function. You cannot do the same for fermions.

In a Bose-Einstein condensate, the bosons within a material have such low energy that they all occupy the same state, acting as a single particle. This allows quantum properties to be seen on a macroscopic scale. A Bose-Einstein condensate was created in a lab for the first time in 1995, at a temperature of a mere 170 nanokelvin.
Quantum Photosynthesis

Now, let’s look at what happens in a typical leaf during photosynthesis.

Plants need three basic ingredients to make their own food — carbon dioxide, water, and light. A pigment called chlorophyll absorbs energy from light at red and blue wavelengths. It reflects light at other wavelengths, which makes the plant look green.

At a molecular level, things get even more interesting. Absorbed light excites an electron within a chromophore, the part of a molecule that determines its reflection or absorption of light. This kicks off a series of chain reactions that end up producing sugars for the plant. Using computer modeling, the researchers at the University of Chicago examined what occurs in green sulfur bacteria, a photosynthetic microbe.

Light excites an electron. Now the electron and the empty space it left behind, called a hole, act together as a boson. This electron-hole pair is called an exciton. The exciton travels to deliver energy to another location, where sugars are created for the organism.

“Chromophores … can pass energy between them in the form of excitons to a reaction center where energy can be used, kind of like a group of people passing a ball to a goal,” Anna Schouten, the study’s lead author, explained to Big Think.

The scientists discovered that the paths of the excitons within localized areas resembled those seen within an exciton condensate — a Bose-Einstein condensate made of excitons. The challenge with exciton condensates is that the electrons and ions tend to recombine quickly. Once this happens the exciton vanishes, often before a condensate can form.

These condensates are remarkably difficult to create in the lab, yet here they were, right in front of the scientists’ eyes, in a messy organism at room temperature. By forming a condensate, the excitons formed one single quantum state. In essence, they were acting like a single particle. This forms a superfluid — a fluid with zero viscosity and zero friction — allowing energy to flow freely between chromophores.

Their results were published in PRX Energy.

 
Messy Conditions

Excitons normally decay quickly, and when they do, they can no longer transfer energy. To give them a longer lifetime, they typically need to be very cold. In fact, exciton condensates have never been seen above temperatures of 100 Kelvin, which is a frosty negative-173 degrees Celsius. This is why it is so surprising to see this behavior in a messy, real-world system at normal temperatures.

So what’s going on here? Just another way that nature is constantly surprising us.

“Photosynthesis works at normal temperatures because nature has to work at normal temperatures in order to survive, so the process evolved to do that,” says Schouten.

In the future, room-temperature Bose-Einstein condensates may have practical applications. Since they act as a single atom, Bose-Einstein condensates may give us insight into quantum properties that would be difficult to observe at the atomic level. They also have applications for gyroscopes, atom lasers, high-precision sensors of time, gravity, or magnetism, and higher levels of energy efficiency and transfer.

THAT GOD(DAMN) PARTICLE

ATLAS and CMS Collaborations Find First Evidence of Rare Higgs Boson Decay

ATLAS and CMS combined their datasets from the second run of the LHC

ByAditya Saikrishna
May 27, 2023

Photo Credit: Twitter/CMSExperiment

SWITZERLAND: Scientists at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have achieved another breakthrough in particle physics as the ATLAS and CMS collaborations joined forces to provide the first evidence of the Higgs boson decaying into a Z boson and a photon.

This rare decay process could shed light on particles beyond the Standard Model and deepen our understanding of the nature of the Higgs boson.

The discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 opened new avenues for research in particle physics. Since then, scientists have meticulously explored its properties and investigated its various decay processes.

At the recent Large Hadron Collider Physics conference, ATLAS and CMS presented their joint efforts to uncover the elusive decay of the Higgs boson into a Z boson and a photon.- Advertisement -

The decay of the Higgs boson into a Z boson and a photon resembles a degeneration into two photons. However, these decays do not occur directly but involve an intermediate “loop” of “virtual” particles that researchers cannot observe directly.

These virtual particles could include yet undiscovered particles that interact with the Higgs boson, potentially challenging the predictions of the Standard Model.

According to the Standard Model, around 0.15% of Higgs bosons with a mass of approximately 125 billion electronvolts should decay into a Z boson and a photon

However, theories extending beyond the Standard Model propose different decay rates. Scientists gain valuable insights into physics beyond the Standard Model and the characteristics of the Higgs boson itself by measuring the decay rate.

Previously, both ATLAS and CMS independently conducted extensive searches for the Higgs boson decay using data from proton-proton collisions at the LHC.

Employing similar strategies, they identified the Z boson through its decay into pairs of electrons or muons, heavier counterparts of electrons. The team found these Z boson decays in approximately 6.6% of the cases.

In their searches, ATLAS and CMS looked for collision events associated with the Higgs boson decay, represented by a narrow peak in the combined mass distribution of the decay products against a smooth background.

The collaborations categorized events based on the characteristics of the Higgs boson’s production processes and implemented advanced machine-learning techniques to distinguish between signal and background events.

In a new study, ATLAS and CMS combined their datasets from the second run of the LHC (2015-2018) to maximize the statistical precision of their search.

The collaboration resulted in the first evidence of the Higgs boson decaying into a Z boson and a photon, with a statistical significance of 3.4 standard deviations.

While the standard deviation falls short of the conventional requirement of 5 standard deviations for claiming an observation, the measured signal rate is 1.9 standard deviations above the Standard Model prediction.

Pamela Ferrari, an ATLAS physics coordinator, emphasized the significance of rare Higgs decays, stating that each particle has a unique relationship with the Higgs boson and searching for it is a high priority.

Florencia Canelli, a CMS physics coordinator, highlighted the potential implications of new particles on rare Higgs decay modes and expressed optimism about future advancements using the ongoing third run of the LHC and the forthcoming High-Luminosity LHC.

This collaborative effort by ATLAS and CMS brings us one step closer to unravelling the mysteries surrounding the Higgs boson and provides an insightful test of the Standard Model.

With further advancements and precision expected in future experiments, scientists anticipate probing even rarer Higgs decays, potentially uncovering new particles and revolutionizing our understanding of the universe’s fundamental building blocks.