ELECTRON LIFETIME

The best measurement yet of the lifetime of the electron suggests that an electron present today will probably still be around in 66,000 yottayears which is about five quintillion times the age of the Universe. That is the conclusion of physicists working on the Borexino experiment in Italy, which detects solar neutrinos emanating from the Sun. The researchers have been searching for evidence that the electron decays to a photon and a neutrino, a process that would violate the conservation of electrical charge and point towards undiscovered physics beyond the Standard Model. The Borexino experiment could also be used to search for decays into the "invisible channel" whereby an electron is converted into three neutrinos or even have the ability to look for the disapparance of an electron into extra dimensions.