Press release:
CERN experiments observe particle consistent with long-sought Higgs boson
“Geneva, 4 July 2012. At a seminar held at CERN1 today as a curtain raiser to the year’s major particle physics conference, ICHEP2012 in Melbourne, the ATLAS and CMS experiments presented their latest preliminary results in the search for the long sought Higgs particle. Both experiments observe a new particle in the mass region around 125-126 GeV.”
I am caught at the moment in the midst of 4th of July activities, but will be back to post some more later. For now, the long and the short of it, is that two independent teams of researchers, using different detectors at the LHC, have found statistically significant evidence of a heavy, previously undetected particle with a mass of about 125 GeV, which is as expected for the Higgs boson. As the “Bad Astronomer” Phil Plait puts it: “Now technically, that’s all the physicists can say: the particle is definitely there. But is it the Higgs? Well, to be fair, they can’t actually say that. But if it walks like a Higgs, looks like a Higgs, and quacks like a Higgs…”
More later.
