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Related: About this forumLatest news on the Higgs boson
A blog by Pauline Gagnon from the Moriond conference entitled Latest news on the Higgs boson:
After six hours of presentations dedicated to the search for the Higgs boson at the Moriond conference, here is a summary of the many new results shown today. Both the CMS and ATLAS experiments presented their latest updates, and no matter the angle studied, the new boson is still perfectly compatible with being a Higgs boson. More will be presented next week, once further checks are completed.
The experiments are now trying to establish not only how the new boson decays but also how it is produced. This will eventually help determine if the new boson is really a Higgs boson, either the one prescribed by the Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism or one associated with supersymmetry, or even not a Higgs boson at all. To answer this question, both teams measured several of the new boson properties, quantities like the signal strength in various production modes, the different decay channels as well as its mass, spin and parity.
Only two decay channels, namely when the boson decays into two photons or four leptons, are used to measure its mass but for all channels, one can measure the signal strength (how many events are found compared to what the Standard Model predicts) and the spin.
The experiments are now trying to establish not only how the new boson decays but also how it is produced. This will eventually help determine if the new boson is really a Higgs boson, either the one prescribed by the Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism or one associated with supersymmetry, or even not a Higgs boson at all. To answer this question, both teams measured several of the new boson properties, quantities like the signal strength in various production modes, the different decay channels as well as its mass, spin and parity.
Only two decay channels, namely when the boson decays into two photons or four leptons, are used to measure its mass but for all channels, one can measure the signal strength (how many events are found compared to what the Standard Model predicts) and the spin.
An unambiguous signal obtained by the CMS collaboration in the search for a Higgs boson decaying into two Z bosons, each one decaying in turns into two leptons. This is the so-called four-lepton channel. We can see the data (black dots) matching the simulation of a Higgs boson shown by the red line.
<more discussion...>
It is a well-known fact that the current theory, the Standard Model, has its limits. Everyone agrees that there should be a more encompassing theory to describe phenomena like the existence of dark matter, something the Standard Model fails to explain. But what is this new theory is the big question. All attempts so far have failed to find a crack in the Standard Model. Hard to improve on an impressive theory that can make predictions accurate up to the tenth decimal.
<more discussion, then in conclusion...>
While we are waiting for new results, some of which will be announced next week, you can entertain yourself by watching an animation recreating how the new boson signal appeared in ATLAS data over time. Meanwhile, as the information is trickling in, the identity of the new boson is slowly being revealed.
I tried to access the aforementioned animation, but it requires a CERN account, darn. Maybe after dinner I'll go out and try to get a PhD in particle physics so I can apply for access...
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Latest news on the Higgs boson (Original Post)
DreamGypsy
Mar 2013
OP
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)1. NO MORE BOOB THREADS!
Oh, sorry, you said "boson".
DetlefK
(16,423 posts)2. Who would want to see the bosom of Peter Higgs???