Higgs Search At LHC Nears End – Has The Higgs Already Been Found?
The Higgs Boson may have finally have been caught or, may be, not! Only a clutch of scientists with direct access to latest LHC data knows whether the Higgs has been found or not! Whatever the result be, one thing is for sure the Higgs hunt is nearly over. CERN researchers have restricted the Higgs mass to a window of only 30 GeV, taking into results from the Large Electron Positron (LEP) collider, the Tevatron and, of course, from the LHC itself.
A simulated Higgs event at LHC
The Higgs, if present in Nature, has got extremely little energy space to hide in. At a conference in Paris, held today (18th November), ATLAS and CMS researchers got together and erased out a HUGE range for the possible mass of the Higgs. A large swathe from 141 to 476 GeV was wiped out in one fell swoop. Says Guido Tonelli, the spokesman for CMS
We’ll know the outcome within weeks.
This is surely going to increase the pulse rate of any particle physicist in the world.
The mass range as it looks now (Courtesy: Nature)
What if…
What happens if the Higgs is not found? A lot of problems for the Standard Model. The Higgs boson is the simplest way to generate masses for fermions (like electrons and protons) and bosons (like W and Z bosons). There are other possibilities, but this one Higgs model is the simplest and most beautiful of all the possible models. However, as Feynman would say, if theory disagrees with experiment, then it’s wrong and it doesn’t matter how beautiful the theory might be.
For long, has the Higgs mass been pinned at about 140 GeV. There is still a strong possibility that the Higgs, if found, will be of this mass. We may be on the brink of history.
More Info: http://www.nature.com/news/higgs-hunt-enters-endgame-1.9399
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Author: Debjyoti Bardhan
Is a science geek, currently pursuing some sort of a degree (called a PhD) in Physics at TIFR, Mumbai. An enthusiastic but useless amateur photographer, his most favourite activity is simply lazing around. He is interested in all things interesting and scientific.Debjyoti Bardhan has written 359 articles for us.
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