The world’s most powerful atom smasher has given physicists a tantalizing — but inconclusive — hint that the long-sought Higgs particle actually exists.
The Higgs is the last undiscovered elementary particle predicted by the standard model, physicists’ leading framework for describing the constituents of matter and transmitters of force. Its discovery would confirm the theory that matter particles acquire their mass by interacting with a pervasive Higgs field occupying all space.
Speaking in front a packed auditorium, two competing teams at the Large Hadron Collider said they’ve seen showers of particles that match the debris expected when the Higgs particle breaks down.
“It's too early to tell if the success is due to the fluctuations in the background, or if it’s due to something more interesting,” said Fabiola Gianotti, a spokeswoman for LHC’s ATLAS detector, who presented her team’s work December 13 at the European laboratory CERN, the home of the LHC, near Geneva.
"Tantalizing" seems to be the word of the day. ;-) To read more, click here.