The eyes of the scientific community were on Geneva today as the particle physics lab at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) presented the latest results from the ATLAS and CMS collaboration in their search for the Standard Model Higgs boson.
The Higgs boson is the only piece missing in an otherwise extremely successful and well-tested theoretical model describing all the fundamental processes of nature called the Standard Model. The particle is believed to be responsible for giving mass to all the particles in the universe. Its discovery is one of the main goals behind the construction of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN.
Tantalizing hints have been seen by the experiments in this mass region, but these are not yet strong enough to claim a discovery. The main conclusion is that the Standard Model Higgs boson, if it exists, is most likely to have a mass constrained to the range 116-130 GeV (gigaelectronvolts, a unit of energy equal to one billion electronvolts) by the ATLAS experiment and 115-127 GeV by CMS, excluding essentially all other hiding places.
“The results presented today represent a significant advance in our search for the Higgs boson”, said Carleton group leader Gerald Oakham. “It is wonderful to be a part of this international scientific experiment and to work with the dedicated research group at Carleton University.”
The ATLAS group at Carleton, which includes faculty, research assistants and students, played a key role in the findings presented at CERN. The group’s original involvement included contributing to the construction of detector components that were shipped to CERN six years ago. These were installed in ATLAS and are now producing data along with the other detectors. The 15-member Carleton group continues to be actively involved in the ATLAS project, calibrating the detectors and analyzing the data gathered. Carleton team members have provided crucial contributions to the Higgs analyses presented today, including faculty member Thomas Koffas and research associates Fabien Tarrade and Jean-Francois Marchand. In addition, faculty member Manuella Vincter and graduate student Kate Whalen worked on new event reconstruction techniques that were an important ingredient of this analysis.
See the CERN press release here.
More on the Higgs Boson in the UK publication The Guardian .