In search of the origin of mass

2006 ◽  
Vol 364 (1849) ◽  
pp. 3389-3405 ◽  
Author(s):  
T.G Shears ◽  
B Heinemann ◽  
D Waters
Keyword(s):  
Higgs Boson ◽  
Particle Physics ◽  
Theoretical Explanation ◽  
Experimental Results ◽  
Particle Accelerator ◽  
The World ◽  
Structure Of Matter ◽  
The Universe

Particle physics explores the structure of matter by studying the behaviour of its most fundamental constituents. Despite the remarkable success of our theories, there remains much that is fundamental but unexplained. One of our most pressing questions concerns the origin of mass. Our favoured theoretical explanation for the existence of mass also predicts the existence of a particle that has never been seen—the Higgs boson. In this review, we survey our knowledge of the Higgs boson and explain why, if the theory is correct, we should expect to make our first observation of the elusive Higgs in the next few years, when a major new particle physics facility starts operating. This will be the most powerful particle accelerator in the world. Although searching for the Higgs boson will be challenging in this environment, we hope that our experimental results will allow us to finally understand the origin of mass and extend our knowledge of the Universe yet further.

Scientists and Students from Hong Kong Join a Top Particle Physics Experiment

2014 ◽  
Vol 03 (02) ◽  
pp. 23-24
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Higgs Boson ◽  
Particle Physics ◽  
Hadron Collider ◽  
New Physics ◽  
Particle Accelerator ◽  
Atlas Collaboration ◽  
Particle Detectors ◽  
The World ◽  
Physics Experiment

A team of physicists from Hong Kong has now formally joined one of the most prestigious physics experiments in the world. Following a unanimous vote of approval today by its Collaboration Board, ATLAS has admitted the Hong Kong team as a member. The ATLAS Collaboration operates one of the largest particle detectors in the world, located at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's highest energy particle accelerator at CERN, Switzerland. In 2012, the ATLAS team — along with the CMS Collaboration — co-discovered the Higgs boson, or so-called 'God Particle'. The gigantic but sensitive and precise ATLAS detector, together with the unprecedentedly high collision energy and luminosity of the LHC, make it possible to search for fundamentally new physics, such as dark matter, hidden extra dimensions, and supersymmetry — a proposed symmetry among elementary particles. The LHC is currently undergoing an upgrade, targeting a substantial increase in beam energy and intensity in a year's time. It is widely expected that the discovery of the Higgs boson is only the beginning of an era of new breakthroughs in fundamental physics. All these exciting opportunities are now opened up to scientists and students from Hong Kong.

scholarly journals CERN: Guardian of the Human Aspiration to Understand the Universe

2020 ◽  
pp. 211-235
Author(s):  
Jos Engelen ◽  
Paul ‘t Hart
Keyword(s):  
Particle Physics ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Nuclear Research ◽  
Particle Accelerator ◽  
European Organization ◽  
Research Organizations ◽  
The World ◽  
World Class ◽  
The Universe

AbstractThe European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) is the world’s most formidable centre for particle physics. Its mission is radically ambitious: uncovering what the universe is made of and how it works. It advances that mission by providing particle accelerator facilities that enable world-class research in fundamental physics, bringing together scientists from all over the world to push the frontiers of science and technology. It has become widely recognized as one of the most successful cross-national collaborative research organizations of all times. Smart institutional design, good governance, resourceful leadership and resilient collaboration have underpinned the strong sense of interdependence, entrenched norms of mutual respect, trust, empathy and consensual decision-making that have allowed it to thrive.

The Higgs Boson, Creation and “Truth”

2014 ◽  
Vol 21 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 380-400
Author(s):  
Cornelius Willem du Toit
Keyword(s):  
Higgs Boson ◽  
Particle Physics ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Physical Reality ◽  
Religious Doctrine ◽  
The World ◽  
Doctrine Of Creation ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Emotion And Affect

In this article the latest developments in particle physics form the basis for rethinking their implications for a religious doctrine of creation. The assumption is that scientific insights that are accepted on solid grounds will influence belief, but will not replace or terminate it. Some aspects of particle physics provide a background to explain the importance of the discovery of the Higgs boson. The question is: can science serve as the final explicator of the world? After looking at the role of metaphysics and truth in science, we briefly consider some unsuccessful attempts to assign God a demonstrable place in physical reality. Would that necessarily imply a creator God? The role of belief in creation in the origin and development of religions is traced in order to determine whether religions entailing such a belief are viable, with due regard to the impact of worldview and evolution on the doctrines of creation and God. In conclusion we look at the distinctive contribution of religion to human life with reference to the role of emotion and affect.

scholarly journals The pre-LHC Higgs hunt

2015 ◽  
Vol 373 (2032) ◽  
pp. 20140039 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Dissertori
Keyword(s):  
Higgs Boson ◽  
Large Hadron Collider ◽  
Standard Model ◽  
Particle Physics ◽  
Hadron Collider ◽  
Precise Data ◽  
Electron Positron ◽  
The Standard Model ◽  
The World ◽  
Large Electron Positron

Enormous efforts at accelerators and experiments all around the world have gone into the search for the long-sought Higgs boson, postulated almost five decades ago. This search has culminated in the discovery of a Higgs-like particle by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider in 2012. Instead of describing this widely celebrated discovery, in this article I will rather focus on earlier attempts to discover the Higgs boson, or to constrain the range of possible masses by interpreting precise data in the context of the Standard Model of particle physics. In particular, I will focus on the experimental efforts carried out during the last two decades, at the Large Electron Positron collider, CERN, Geneva, Switzerland, and the Tevatron collider, Fermilab, near Chicago, IL, USA.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Iliopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Elementary Particle ◽  
Scientific Community ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Hadron Collider ◽  
Microscopic Structure ◽  
The World ◽  
Structure Of Matter ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Scale Evolution

The discovery of a new elementary particle at LHC, the large hadron collider operating at CERN, has stirred great emotion not only in the scientific community, but also in world media. In this little book we argue that this is due to the potential scientific of the discovery: it was the last missing piece in our struggle to understand the structure of the world and it may shed light on the origin of masses in the early Universe. We will explain that this particle is the remnant of a phase transition which occurred when the Universe was only a tiny fraction of a second old. In doing so we will uncover a surprising connection between the laws of physics which we discover in our laboratories while studying the microscopic structure of matter and those which govern the large scale evolution of the world.

Causality and Filling the Ignorance Gap

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara E. Gorman ◽  
Jack M. Gorman
Keyword(s):  
Particle Physics ◽  
Hadron Collider ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
The Public ◽  
Intravenous Drugs ◽  
The World ◽  
Full Capacity ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Two Bodies

There is an old adage: “What you don’t know can’t hurt you.” In the science denial arena, however, this adage seems to have been recrafted to something like: “What you don’t know is an invitation to make up fake science.” Before it was dis¬covered that tuberculosis is caused by a rather large bacteria called Mycobacterium tuberculosis it was widely believed to be the result of poor moral character. Similarly, AIDS was attributed to “deviant” lifestyles, like being gay or using intravenous drugs. When we don’t know what causes something, we are pummeled by “experts” telling us what to believe. Vaccines cause autism. ECT causes brain damage. GMOs cause cancer. Interestingly, the leap by the public to latch onto extreme theories does not extend to all branches of science. Physicists are not certain how the force of gravity is actually conveyed between two bodies. The theoretical solutions offered to address this question involve mind-boggling mathematics and seemingly weird ideas like 12 dimensional strings buzzing around the universe. But we don’t see denialist theories about gravity all over the Internet. Maybe this is simply because the answer to the question does not seem to affect our daily lives one way or the other. But it is also the case that even though particle physics is no more or less complex than molecular genetics, we all believe the former is above our heads but the latter is within our purview. Nonphysicists rarely venture an opinion on whether or not dark matter exists, but lots of nonbiologists will tell you exactly what the immune system can and cannot tolerate. Even when scientific matters become a little more frightening, when they occur in some branches of science, they register rather mild atten¬tion. Some people decided that the supercollider in Switzerland called the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) might be capable of producing black holes that would suck in all of Earth. Right before the LHC was scheduled to be tested at full capacity, there were a few lawsuits filed around the world trying to stop it on the grounds that it might induce the end of the world.

scholarly journals Outstanding questions: physics beyond the Standard Model

2012 ◽  
Vol 370 (1961) ◽  
pp. 818-830 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Ellis
Keyword(s):  
Dark Matter ◽  
Higgs Boson ◽  
Large Hadron Collider ◽  
Standard Model ◽  
Particle Physics ◽  
Hadron Collider ◽  
Beyond The Standard Model ◽  
The Standard Model ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Universe

The Standard Model of particle physics agrees very well with experiment, but many important questions remain unanswered, among them are the following. What is the origin of particle masses and are they due to a Higgs boson? How does one understand the number of species of matter particles and how do they mix? What is the origin of the difference between matter and antimatter, and is it related to the origin of the matter in the Universe? What is the nature of the astrophysical dark matter? How does one unify the fundamental interactions? How does one quantize gravity? In this article, I introduce these questions and discuss how they may be addressed by experiments at the Large Hadron Collider, with particular attention to the search for the Higgs boson and supersymmetry.

scholarly journals Higgs Boson: The Ultimate Particle of the Universe

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 56-59
Author(s):  
Kul Prasad Dahal
Keyword(s):  
Higgs Boson ◽  
Building Block ◽  
Particle Physics ◽  
Higgs Particle ◽  
Basic Building Block ◽  
Speed Of Light ◽  
New Era ◽  
Ancient Time ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Basic Constituent

The concept of basic constituent particles of matter have been changing from ancient time to present. Scientists have been looking for the Higgs since the long with experiments at CERN and Fermilab. Confirming the existence of the Higgs would only be the start of a new era of particle physics. To find the particle and characterize it, scientists are smashing beams of proton together inside LHC at close to the speed of light. The recent discovery declared that the finding is very close to the ultimate particle called Higgs particle. This is believed to be the basic building block of the universe. The Himalayan PhysicsVol. 3, No. 32012Page : 56-59

Inflation, LHC and the Higgs boson

2015 ◽  
Vol 30 (28n29) ◽  
pp. 1545001
Author(s):  
Fedor Bezrukov ◽  
Mikhail Shaposhnikov
Keyword(s):  
Higgs Boson ◽  
Standard Model ◽  
Particle Physics ◽  
Planck Scale ◽  
Inflationary Cosmology ◽  
Evolution Of The Universe ◽  
Short Overview ◽  
The Standard Model ◽  
The Universe

After the Higgs boson has been discovered, the Standard Model of particle physics became a confirmed theory, potentially valid up to the Planck scale and allowing to trace the evolution of the Universe from inflationary stage till the present days. We discuss the relation between the results from the LHC and the inflationary cosmology. We given an overview of the Higgs inflation, and its relation to the possible metastability of the electroweak vacuum. A short overview of the bounds on the metastability of the electroweak vacuum in the models with inflation not related to the Higgs boson is presented.

scholarly journals Was the Higgs Boson Discovered?

2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nguyen Anh Ky ◽  
Nguyen Thi Hong Van
Keyword(s):  
Higgs Boson ◽  
Standard Model ◽  
Particle Physics ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
General Purpose ◽  
Higgs Mechanism ◽  
Particle Accelerator ◽  
Scalar Boson ◽  
The Standard Model ◽  
Experimental Background

The standard model has postulated the existence of a scalar boson, named the Higgs boson (or the Brout-Englert-Higgs boson, for more complete). This boson plays a central role in a symmetry breaking scheme called the Higgs mechanism making the standard model realistic. However, until recently at least, the 50-year-long-sought Higgs boson had remained the only particle in the standard model not yet discovered experimentally. It is the last but very important missing ingredient of the standard model. Therefore, searching for the Higgs boson is a crucial task and an important mission of particle physics. For this purpose, many theoretical works have been done and dierent experiments have been organized. It may be said in particular that to search for the Higgs boson has been one of the ultimatums of building and running the LHC, the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator, at CERN, which is a great combination of science and technology. Recently, in the summer of 2012, ATLAS and CMS, the two biggest and general- purpose LHC collaborations, announced the discovery of a new boson with a mass around 125 GeV. Since then, for over two years, ATLAS, CMS and other collaborations have carried out intensive investigations on the newly discovered boson to conrm that this new boson is really the Higgs boson (of the standard model). It is a triumph of science and technology and international cooperation. Here, we will review the main results of these investigations after presenting a brief introduction to the Higgs boson between the theoretical framework of the standard model and Higgs mechanism as well as a theoretical and experimental background of searching for it. This paper may attract interest of not only particle physicists but also a broader audience.

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