Violation of custodial symmetry from W -boson mass measurements

Abstract

The new measurement of the $W$-boson mass from the CDF collaboration shows a significant tension with the Standard Model prediction. We quantify this discrepancy within a state-of-the-art analysis of electroweak precision data and scrutinize the leading deformations of the Standard Model Effective Field Theory arising at dimension six. We find evidence for a non-zero value of the $T$ parameter, i.e. for a novel source of violation of custodial symmetry, pointing to physics beyond the Standard Model at the 4.5$\sigma$ level. We contextualize the implications of our findings in light of other present anomalies in Particle Physics.