The last missing piece of scientists’ fundamental model of particle physics is running out of places to hide.
That piece, an elementary particle called the Higgs boson that is thought to give all matter mass, has evaded detection so far. But physicists working at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, Switzerland, including a contingent of more than two dozen scientists from the University of California, San Diego, have ruled out most of the range of masses the Higgs could have, leaving just a narrow span where the elusive particle might be found.
“If it exists, it has to be there. And if it’s not there, it will be known to be science fiction by December,” Vivek Sharma, a physics professor at UC San Diego told Science NOW. Sharma coordinates the international team searching for Higgs boson with the CMS detector, one of two large instruments deployed in the search. The other is called ATLAS.
“We are now entering a very exciting phase in the hunt for the Higgs boson,” Sharma said. “If the Higgs boson exists between 114-145 GeV, we should start seeing statistically significant excesses over estimated backgrounds, and if it does not then we hope to rule it out over the entire mass range. One way or the other we are poised for a major discovery, likely by the end of this year.”