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Long before the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) could smash its first atoms, researchers manning the Tevatron collider at Fermilab, in a quiet suburb 40 miles west of Chicago, raced to find evidence that the Higgs boson exists. After roughly three decades of service, the Tevatron shut down for good in late 2011, dealing the city of Batavia’s largest employer a significant blow. Less than 18 months later, the LHC (the Tevatron’s technological successor) also went offline – albeit temporarily. Only four years after recording its first proton collisions, the team at CERN is already scrambling to upgrade the staggering LHC, which lies under parts of no less than five cities in both France and Switzerland. With the world’s largest particle colliders smashing a whole lot of nothing together for the next two years at least, the field of high-energy physics research is starting to look resource-starved. Of course, many might ask why exactly we need giant atom smashers like this, or even how they work. It turns out that first part is quite a bit easier to answer than the second.

During the last several decades, particle accelerators have revealed the existence of elementary particles such as quarks, led to the discovery of antimatter and generally helped us unlock the mysteries of the universe. And once they were done splitting atoms and probing the darkest corners of theoretical physics, accelerators often led to breakthroughs in medical imaging and cancer research. So, as massive colliders seem ready to land on the endangered species list, it seems as good a time as any to explain what a particle collider is, how it works and what we as a society have to gain from the research.

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It’s not everyday you get to tour CERN, the international particle physics research facility that spans the border of both France and Switzerland. It’s even more rare to go down into the sprawling facility’s tunnels to see an inactive and under repair Large Hadron Collider — currently, the world’s most powerful particle accelerator. But that’s just what we did this past week, as we spent some quality time with CERN’s physicists and visited the dormant LHC, as well as two of its detectors: ALICE and CMS (pictured above). There’ll be much more to come from our trip to CERN, so stay tuned. But for now feast your eyes on the birthplace of the Higgs Boson discovery.

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As a prominent musician once noted: all that hype doesn’t feel the same next year, boy. And that’s sadly proving true for our old friend Higgs Boson, who shot to fame last Summer but is now waking up to find only a handful of fans camped outside his collider. Part of the problem is simply that things have become procedural and academic — CERN scientists met in Italy this week to share their latest findings, but the updates were mostly either inconclusive or suggestive of a rather mundane-seeming subatomic entity.

At the time of Higgs’ discovery, observers were especially interested in the possibility that this mysterious particle didn’t decay in exactly the way science had predicted. It seemed to break down into an excess of photons, such that it might potentially reveal something unexpected about dark matter and the structure of space-time. But as data continues to be gathered, it appears more likely that the extra photons may have been a statistical anomaly, leading one researcher to admit on Twitter that his ATLAS team is “not too excited” about it anymore. Nothing is confirmed at this point, however, and other scientists have since tweeted to caution against jumping to conclusions. At least we can say for sure that Higgs still exists. And if the poor thing can’t hold the universe together and mess with the laws of physics at the same time, then so be it.

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Source: New Scientist, @Resonaances (Twitter)

Physics’ big announcement had more in common with a leaky product launch than the serious business of re-writing the science books. But slack asset management aside, it’s official: a new boson has been observed with a standard deviation of 5 (confidence of 99.9%). The highly anticipated announcement came this morning direct from CERN’s press conference (via ICHEP in Melbourne,) and is the result of an intense, ongoing search for the elusive particle. The observation is of a boson particle with a mass of 125.3 ± 0.6 GeV, at a significance of 4.9 sigma. Joe Incandela — giving the presentation — said that this is “In agreement with the standard model at 95% confidence range.” The boson is the heaviest ever found, and although this is still a preliminary result, it’s by far the strongest case yet for the existence of the elusive Higgs.

The sought-after particle is essential for supporting the current understanding of sub-atomic world, and its bearing on nuclear, and electromagnetic interactions. The next stage will be to determine the exact characteristics of the new particle and whether it matches the expectations of the Higgs, or is it in fact something more “exotic.” This part will take much more time, but for now, a (very) small, but important piece of the puzzle has been found.

Update: We’re sure you’ve got many questions, and CERN apparently anticipated this. Check out the more coverage link for a helpful FAQ about everything Higgs.

[Image credit: CERN]

Continue reading CERN confirms existence of new particle consistent with Higgs boson (video)

CERN confirms existence of new particle consistent with Higgs boson (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Jul 2012 03:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We had a false alarm over the possible discovery of the theory-unifying Higgs boson last year, but a bit of poking and prodding in subsequent months may well have given us much more definitive evidence of the elusive particle. According to some rare rumors emerging from Nature, both CERN’s ATLAS and CMS detectors have seen particle decay signals suggesting the existence of Higgs to within a 4.5 to 5 sigma level of proof — in other words, very nearly concrete evidence. That’s not quite the 5-plus needed to settle the matter, but it’s to a much higher level of certainty than before. As if to add fuel to the fire, ScienceNews even located a briefly posted, CERN-made video (sadly, since pulled) saying bluntly that the CMS team had “observed a new particle.”

Whether or not there’s any substance is another matter. Nature hears that scientists are supposedly still working out what to say at an event on Wednesday, while CERN has made the slightly odd claim to ScienceNews that the yanked video is just one of several pre-recorded segments made to cover possible outcomes — you know, in that “Dewey defeats Truman” sort of way. Unless the scientists have to go back to the drawing board, though, the focus from now on may be more on learning how Higgs behaves than its very existence. Any significant truth could see researchers proving the validity of the standard model of physics just as we’re firing up our Independence Day barbecues.

Higgs boson just may, possibly, more or less be proven to exist by ATLAS and CMS teams originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 03 Jul 2012 14:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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