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CERN / CMS
A computer visualization shows proton-proton collision events at the Large Hadron Collider that would be consistent with the behavior of the long-sought Higgs boson.
By Clara Moskowitz
LiveScience
The latest news on a newfound particle that turned up last year at the world's largest particle accelerator will be announced at a conference beginning Saturday in Italy.
The big question on scientists' mind is whether the particle truly is the long-sought Higgs boson, which has been predicted for decades but never seen ... until perhaps now.
The teams behind the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the Large Hadron Collider at the CERN physics lab near Geneva, where the new particle was found, will present their analyses of the full set of data collected in 2012. The gathering, called the Moriond conference, runs from March 2 through 16 in La Thuile, Italy.
The researchers announced their find in July 2012, and have been studying the particle's properties ever since in hopes of confirming it is in fact the Higgs. [Gallery: Search for the Higgs Boson]
"Patience is the order of the day,” CERN’s research director, Sergio Bertolucci, said in a statement. "Everyone wants to know exactly what it is we've discovered, and that will come through a long and painstaking analysis. But the Higgs is just one part of a wide research program at the LHC experiments, and there will be plenty of other interesting physics at Moriond."
The Higgs boson has been the missing piece of the Standard Model, which describes all the known subatomic particles in the universe. Theorized by physicist Peter Higgs and his colleagues in 1964, the particle is thought to be tied to a Higgs field that bestows mass on other particles.
Researchers caution that the final word on the Higgs is unlikely to be handed down in the coming week.
"Many people were hoping CMS and ATLAS, the two large multipurpose experiments operating at the LHC at CERN, would finally announce that the boson discovered last year is really a Higgs boson," LHC physicist Pauline Gagnon wrote on the physics blog Quantum Diaries. "Unfortunately, it is still too early to say. Nevertheless, both experiments can be expected to show interesting updates on the new boson mass measurement, decay rates and spin, all of which will provide a clearer picture."
To determine if the new particle is actually the Higgs, scientists must study how it decays. The particle is exotic and short-lived, and almost immediately after being conjured in the accelerator, it decays into other, more mundane particle species. By studying the rates and patterns of these decays, the physicists hope to show that the new particle fits the properties predicted for the Higgs.
The findings being presented at the conference include more precise measurements of these decays, which could be the key to confirming the particle's identity.
"Precise measurements may not at first sight seem as exciting as discovering a new particle," Bertolucci said, "but it’s there that we really learn things. For example, a discrepancy with theoretical predictions for the signal strengths in any of the decay channels would be one of the strongest markers for new physics."
Gagnon said she looked forward to learning whether the new particle decays in patterns that deviate from what is predicted by the Standard Model. If so, it could point to other new particles joining the mix, such as those predicted by a theory called supersymmetry.
"Both ATLAS and CMS obtained sometimes more, sometimes less events containing the new boson than what is expected from the Standard Model, although these observations came with very large errors," Gagnon wrote. "An excess of events in the two-photon decay rate could indicate that new particles contribute to the process, a possibility that many theorists hope would reveal the presence of supersymmetry."
Follow Clara Moskowitz on Twitter @ClaraMoskowitz or LiveScience @livescience. We're also on Facebook and Google+.
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Will they ever know if they did find the one element they think fits their envisioned idea of a particle that they think should have occurred at the time of the theoretical so-called big bang? If they keep smashing stuff together, they should find many unknown particles that will have to be put into more envisioned classifications of theory.The question is, what to do with these unknown particles. Many more years of experimenting with the unknown particles may someday reproduce a big bang, and that will be worth all the effort.
Before the Big Bang, there may well have been no mass at all. While some refer to this as 'coming from nothing', I believe it would be better referred to as coming from a state of zero mass. How could that be? Remember E = mc^2. Just as mass (at the speed of light squared) can be 'turned into' energy, the reverse must also be the case. We may not understand the physics yet, but equations go both ways--they are not one-sided. As such, the event of the Big Bang holds the clues about the circumstances under which energy explodes into matter (mass) at the speed of light squared. Interesting stuff...
Ya put enough pieces together you can come up with any type ( size ) of particle. Up next the " Universal " particle! Turns into anything you want anytime you want it!!
Ok, now I understand.
So far they can create unknown particles, but they can only capture it in a picture as it only lasts for a very small moment in time. The next thing would be to find a way to isolate, and contain the particle they want to keep, but how to do it is much harder to do than to create it. These particles are of no use if you can only see it in a picture. The same problem is with creating anti-matter and storing it for future use as a fuel or a component of fuel. So, if they could create a variety of particles at the same time, out of different matter, multiple collisions, then it could be controlled into a more useful result if it could be contained, and or used as a fuel
What I have a problem with is that these collisions in the LHC are supposed to recreate the conditions of the "Big Bang". If we are hoping to detect this Higgs boson based upon its extremely short half life decay, then why would there be any Higgs bosons around today? Can someone out there possibly answer this for me ??? Is the experiment itself flawed from the beginning? - RC
I very much doubt it will be conclusively found.
I am a philosopher and doesn't claim to be a physicist. However I have my own theory about why New Scientist in its latest magasine writes that we have run out of explanations for the Universe. When we investigate the physical universe we investigate the effect of some creation. Big Bang must have been created somehow. I believe that if we put this creation into mathemathical form, a lot of the puzzles we have today will vanish. Read a lot more about this theory at www.crestroy.com