For a thorough description of the searches at LEP, including a once-tantalizing excess seen at m H = 115 GeV, see the review by Kado & Tully ( 11) in a prior volume of this journal. While several model-dependent limits were placed on the production of the Higgs boson with a mass below 3.6 GeV ( 9, 10), it was the model-independent measurements of four experiments, ALEPH, DELPHI, OPAL, and 元, at the Large Electron–Positron Collider (LEP) that ruled out the presence of an SM Higgs boson with a mass below m H<114.4 GeV at the 95% confidence level (CL). Although the theory predicted couplings of the Higgs boson to W and Z bosons and provided a mechanism to explain its couplings to fermions, the mass of the Higgs boson was unknown. Proving the validity of the mass-generating mechanism has required experimental observation of the Higgs boson. Worldwide experimental searches for the Higgs boson began in earnest after the consolidation of the electroweak theory into the Standard Model (SM) ( 6– 8) of particle physics and its confirmation with the discovery of the W and Z bosons. For a historical perspective on the development of this theory, see the accompanying article by Quigg ( 5) in this volume. The quantum of this field is the particle popularly referred to as the Higgs boson. They conjectured a complex scalar quantum field, with the quantum numbers of the vacuum, which permeates the entirety of our Universe. ( 4) proposed a mechanism for spontaneous breaking of gauge symmetries that, when applied to electroweak theory, helps explain why bosons carrying the weak force have mass, unlike those carrying electromagnetic and strong forces. Because I just said they would, and if you ask 'Why?' one more time we're not stopping at Burger King."įor religious fundamentalists: "There is no Higgs boson.Approximately 50 years ago, Englert & Brout ( 1), Higgs ( 2, 3), and Guralnik et al. Because they would all continue to travel at the speed of light, just like photons do. Because without it, the other particles in the universe wouldn't have mass. Because they knew that without it the universe would be impossible. Change the channel – we're missing Come Dine With Me."įor a member of the Taxpayers' Alliance : "Its discovery is a colossal, unprecedented, almost infinite waste of money."įor a child in the back seat of a car: "It's a particle that some scientists have been looking for. Yes, I do know what electromagnetism is, thank you very much – unified forces, Einstein, blah blah blah, mass unaccounted for, yadda yadda, quarks, Higgs boson, the end. Without it the universe would be a meaningless cloud of gibberish – a bit like The Da Vinci Code, if you read that."įor teenagers studying A-level physics: "No, I know it's not an atom. Each coloured plastic ball represents a Higgs boson: collectively they provide the essential drag that stops your toddler/electron falling to the bottom of the universe, where all the snakes and hypodermic needles are."įor English undergraduates: "The Higgs boson (pronounced "boatswain") is a type of subatomic punctuation with a weight somewhere between a tiny semicolon and an invisible comma. For harassed, sleep-deprived parents: "If the constituent parts of matter were sticky-faced toddlers, then the Higgs field would be like one of those ball pits they have in the children's play area at IKEA.
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