Of Particular Significance

This Site’s Background Articles on the Higgs

POSTED BY Matt Strassler

POSTED BY Matt Strassler

ON 06/27/2012

Coming very soon: News on the search for the Higgs particle by CMS and ATLAS, the two big experiments at the Large Hadron Collider [LHC]. Presentations updating the search are expected on July 4th, IndependHiggs Day, at 9:00 am Geneva (Switzerland) time, at the CERN laboratory, which hosts the LHC. The talks, like those of December 13th, 2011, are expected to be technical and intended for experts, though non-experts with some significant amount of background might enjoy directly seeing the data and sharing in the sense of excitement.

The current phase of the search is aimed at either discovering or excluding the simplest type of Higgs particle, known as the Standard Model Higgs. If you are interested in understanding what this particle is and how one looks for it, you can read

To learn more about what the Higgs field and particle are and do, try

Regarding Higgs particles that are more complex than the Standard Model Higgs, and that may be harder to find, you can read

 

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11 Responses

  1. Mostly the missing weight that we are all looking for is bond weight between neutrons and protons and they are spinning at light speed so at rest they are lighter. Remember that these subatomic particals are not at rest and there weights are higher then at rest. So it follows that this is the missing weights an not any other subatomic particals other then protons, neutrons, and electrons. I have done the math. Just use the string theorey and you find plenty of same numbers coming up.

  2. The market is betting a Higgs will be found; the main uncertainty seems to be about when (the betting is agnostic as to what type of Higgs will be found):
    http://www.intrade.com/v4/markets/?eventId=82699

    Note however the dates in question are the date a 5-sigma discovery is published in a major journal (for something of this nature I guess that would be Nature/Science/PRL). So one needs to include the time for the peer-review process plus publishing overhead.

  3. Hi Matt, I am so glad I found this blog. You know everything about the Higgs (particle and field) about particle physics in general, the LHC. Furthermore you are explaining everything about physics there is to know. I will not have to visit other blogs and websites any more. Thank you so much!

    😉

  4. Matt, you have a very good coverage about the Higgs in your site, but you might be missing the most important spot, the truth.

    Yes, the Standard Model is very successful with the following facts.
    1. No major experiments contradict to the SM, except a few minor points, such as the neutrinos do have some masses.
    2. No major physics beyond the SM is observed thus far.
    3. SM is based on the notion of Higgs idea (Higgs field and bosons).
    4. SM is incomplete in terms of some other knowledge, such as the cosmology, etc..

    From the above facts, it is very reasonable for someone to “believe” that the Higgs idea must be right. Yet, all the above facts can still manifest if the Higgs idea is only a “shadow” of the reality. Have you ever contemplated the possibility of Higgs being a shadow?

    At other blogs (such as, http://blog.vixra.org/2012/06/24/higgs-discovery-on-the-brink-but-is-it-the-higgs/#comment-17638 ) , the negative side of the Higgs were discussed some.
    amarashiki wrote, “… The SM Higgs fixes everything and it closes the SM. It is possible and we could get the dessert up to Planck Scale. However, we have:
    1) …
    2) Dark matter compelling evidences. A light SM Higgs gives no hint about the Nature of Dark Matter (the desert is a big issue). …
    3) Dark energy issues. SM Higgs does not answer it (even as inflation like mechanism).

    7) Gravity. Does Higgs couple to (quantum) gravity? Does it modify gravity at some scale? The SM Higgs does not answer it.
    8) …

    Ervin Goldfain wrote, “It has been known for awhile now that discovery of the Higgs alone may spell theoretical troubles in the long run. Your list does not include the fermion flavor problem, discrepancies of the Higgs model with the observed magnitude of the vacuum energy density, the anomalous magnetic moment of leptons and the inability of SM to correctly account for the underlying mechanism of CP violation. …”

    Yet, there is a deeper issue. The vision of any gadget (experiments) is always inferior to the vision of the wisdom. The capability of all gadgets is always limited. The great SLAC is running no more. The great Tevatron is now shutdown. The vision of gadgets is always superficial and transient. Now, only 7 days to the CERN news conference on the Higgs update. If CERN made an announcement about the discovery of the SM Higgs in that conference outright, it will eventually be proved as a transient vision. A “bigger” gadget will eventually overturn it. Have you ever considered covering this spot about Higgs (being a shadow of the reality)?

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A decay of a Higgs boson, as reconstructed by the CMS experiment at the LHC

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