THE WEAK MIXING ANGLE AND NEW PHYSICS (A TALE OF TWO NUMBERS)

The two best Z pole determinations of sin2 θW (mz)#ovr MS# differ by 3 sigma, a feature lost in global fits and averaging. Individually, sin2 θW(mZ)#ovr MS# = 0.2307(3) obtained from ALR, taken together with mW = 80.410(32) GeV, points to a very light Higgs boson, mH ≅ 12-63 GeV, already ruled out experimentally. it is, however, easily redeemed by low mass scale supersymmetry or models with (effectively) S ≅ -0.12 and T ≅ +0.06. Alternatively, sin2 θW (mZ)#ovr MS# ≅ 0.2320(3) obtained from AFB(Z → (ovr bb)), suggests a very heavy Higgs, mH ∼ 500 GeV, along with S ≅ +0.45 which is suggestive of Technicolor models. Future ways to resolve this discrepancy are briefly discussed.