30 January 1997
 
 
 
             Have DESY detectors had sight of supersymmetry?
 
 London. European particle physicists may have seen the
 first signs of physics beyond their 'Standard Model' -- the
 conventional theoretical framework for electromagnetic and
 nuclear forces. But whatever they have achieved, they are
 not telling.
 
 Two detector-collaborations, H1 and ZEUS, at the HERA
 accelerator at the Deutsches Elektronen Synkrotron
 (DESY) centre in Hamburg, are refusing all comment
 while putting the finishing touches to papers describing
 their observations of anomalous scattering events produced
 by colliding positrons with quarks within protons.
 
 Speculation abounds that the physicists have seen a first --
 albeit tentative -- sign of supersymmetry. Other less
 exciting explanations are said to include statistical
 fluctuations (though the collaborations have seen effects
 independently) and an unsuspected shortcoming in applying
 the Standard Model.