Wednesday, July 11, 2012 4:45:08 AM
Higgs Boson Particle Discovery May Help Reveal Dark Matter Secrets
This track is an example of simulated data modelled for the ATLAS detector on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. The Higgs boson is produced in the collision of two protons and quickly decays into four muons, a type of heavy electron that is not absorbed by the detector. The tracks of the muons are shown in yellow.
CREDIT: CERN
by Denise Chow, SPACE.com Staff Writer
Date: 05 July 2012 Time: 02:31 PM ET
The discovery of a new subatomic particle that is likely the elusive Higgs boson — a particle thought to give all other matter its mass — could be an important step toward uncovering the invisible stuff that makes up the majority of the universe, physicists say.
In a much-hyped announcement yesterday (July 4) from the world's largest atom smasher, the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, scientists reported evidence of a new "Higgs-like" particle [ http://www.livescience.com/21380-higgs-boson-particle-lhc-findings.html ] with roughly 125 times the mass of the proton.
The researchers claimed a high level of certainty that the new particle is the long-sought Higgs boson [ http://www.lifeslittlemysteries.com/2652-higgs-boson-god-particle-explanation.html ], which is thought to answer how all other matter has mass [ http://www.lifeslittlemysteries.com/2641-higgs-particle-mass.html ]. The long-sought-after Higgs is the missing link in the reigning theory of particle physics, known as the Standard Model, but finding the Higgs has even wider implications: It opens the door beyond the Standard Model for explaining the existence of dark matter, the mysterious substance widely thought to make up 83 percent of all matter in the universe.
Dark matter has yet to be directly detected; its presence is inferred based on its gravitational pull. Confirming the characteristics of the newly found Higgs-like particle could account for dark matter.
While dark matter is not explained as part of the Standard Model, evidence for the enigmatic substance (based on its gravitational effects) is hard to ignore. This could mean the Standard Model is only part of a wider framework to explain the universe, said Harvey Newman, a professor of physics at the California Institute of Technology. [Top 5 Implications of Finding the Higgs Boson [ http://www.livescience.com/17433-implications-higgs-boson-discovery-lhc.html ] ]
"We can't really deny the existence of dark matter," Newman told SPACE.com from the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, in Geneva. "The Higgs particle that we found doesn't prevent us at all for searching for particles that lie beyond the Standard Model. We still need a candidate for dark matter."
If the newfound particle [ http://www.livescience.com/21382-higgs-boson-discovery-physicists-reactions.html ] is consistent with the Standard Model, physicists may be able to use these results to craft a more encompassing picture of the universe.
"You can think of what we found as the key part of the genetic blueprint of the universe," said Maria Spiropulu, another Caltech physics professor of physics, who was in the audience at the July 4 announcement in Switzerland.
"You can think of what we found as the key part of the genetic blueprint of the universe," Spiropulu told SPACE.com in an email. "You remember in 2000 what we all exclaimed and learned about how the genome will lead us to new places. This is a good analogy on the road we are down on, in terms of changing things in our understanding."
Further experiments could indicate that the composition of dark matter requires a more fundamental explanation than the Standard Model, Newman said.
"Even if we find out that this is indeed, to the best of our ability to measure, the Standard Model Higgs boson, there are all these other questions that are unanswered. One of the first questions is: What composes the dark matter in the universe [ http://www.space.com/15936-astronomy-mysteries-science-countdown.html ]? There's no room in the Standard Model of the universe to make up the dark matter, so we have to look at other candidate alternatives."
One such alternative is known as "supersymmetry" or SUSY, which is an extension of the Standard Model. Supersymmetry suggests that every known elemental particle has a partner that is identical except for its spin. For instance, photons would have partner "photinos," and electroweak bosons would have duplicate "electroweak-inos."
"Now a Higgs-like sector in SUSY becomes very rich," Spiropulu said. "You have a set of "higgs-inos" as partners. How the dark matter candidate behaves has to do with how it shakes hands with the electroweak-inos and the higgs-inos. So the (very, very) weakly interacting massive particle of SUSY that fits the bill for the dark matter composition [ http://www.space.com/13377-big-bang-theory-universe-today.html ] of the universe is coupled to the existence of some Higgs and its supersymmetric extension."
The confirmation process for the new particle will take time, as physicists run more experiments and analyze wider sets of data to be sure they are not witnessing anomalous events. Still, it is an exciting time for science.
"Whatever happens, Standard Model or no, we are at the edge of a tremendous generation of exploration," Newman said, "either to find out what's wrong with the Standard Model, or to go back to looking for what are the more fundamental things that are outside the model, and how we explain those."
Copyright © 2012 TechMediaNetwork.com
http://www.space.com/16444-higgs-boson-particle-dark-matter.html [with comments] [also at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48084815/ns/technology_and_science-space/ (with comments)]
===
Higgs boson find could make light-speed travel possible, scientists say
Unlocking great mysteries of the world: Joe Incandela (R), CMS experiment spokesman, gestures next to Rolf Heuer, CERN Director General, talk to reporters at CERN near Geneva on Wednesday.
REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
National Post Wire Services
Jul 5, 2012 – 5:36 PM ET | Last Updated: Jul 6, 2012 5:15 PM ET
The potential discovery of the Higgs boson is a gateway to a new era that could see humanity unlock some of the universe’s great mysteries, including dark matter and light-speed travel, scientists have claimed.
The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) unveiled data from the Large Hadron Collider Wednesday “consistent with the long-sought Higgs boson,” an elusive particle thought to help explain why matter has mass.
Scientists went into a frenzy following the announcement, speculating that it could one day make light-speed travel possible by “un-massing” objects or allow huge items to be launched into space by “switching off” the Higgs.
CERN scientist Albert de Roeck likened it to the discovery of electricity, when he said humanity could never have imagined its future applications.
“What’s really important for the Higgs is that it explains how the world could be the way that it is in the first millionth of a second in the Big Bang,” de Roeck said.
“Can we apply it to something? At this moment my imagination is too small to do that.”
A representation of traces of a proton-to-proton collision measured in the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experience in the search for the Higgs boson.
AFP/Getty Images
Physicist Ray Volkas said “almost everybody” was hoping that, rather than fitting the so-called Standard Model of physics — a theory explaining how particles fit together in the Universe — the Higgs boson would prove to be “something a bit different.”
“If that was the case that would point to all sorts of new physics — physics that might have something to do with dark matter,” he said, referring to the hypothetical invisible matter thought to make up much of the universe.
“It could be, for example, that the Higgs particle acts as a bridge between ordinary matter, which makes up atoms, and dark matter, which we know is a very important component of the universe.”
“That would have really fantastic implications for understanding all of the matter in the universe, not just ordinary atoms,” he added.
De Roeck said scrutinizing the new particle and determining whether it supported something other than the Standard Model would be the next step for CERN scientists.
Clarification could be expected by the beginning of 2013. Definitive proof that it fitted the Standard Model could take until 2015 when the LHC had more power and could harvest more data.
The LHC is due to go offline for a two-year refit in December that will see its firepower doubled to 14 trillion electronvolts — a huge step forward in the search for new particles and clues about what holds them all together.
De Roeck said he would find it a “little boring at the end if it turns out that this is just the Standard Model Higgs.”
Breakthrough: (L to R) British physicist Peter Higgs, European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) Director General Rolf-Dieter Heuer, CMS experiment spokesperson Joe Incandela, ATLAS experiment spokesperson Fabiola Gianotti, and Former CERN Director-General Christopher Llewelyn-Smith pose at a press on July 4, 2012 at CERN on Wednesday.
FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/GettyImages
Instead, he was hoping it would be a “gateway or a portal to new physics, to new theories which are actually running nature” such as supersymmetry, which hypothesizes that there are five different Higgs particles governing mass.
The hunt for the Higgs — the logical next step of which de Roeck said would be searching for, and eventually being able to produce, dark matter particles — has already had huge benefits to medicine and technology.
Volkas said the Internet was born at CERN as a solution to high-volume data-sharing and other major spin-offs were likely to follow as physicists continued to “push the boundaries of pure science”.
*
Best of Higgs Field Theory physicists [embedded]
Soundbytes from the interviews to Peter Higgs, Francois Englert, Carl Hagen and Gerald Guralnik, recorded at CERN on the announcement of the latest results from ATLAS and CMS on the Higgs boson searches.
CERN Press release: CERN experiments observe particle consistent with long-sought Higgs boson http://cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2012/PR17.12E.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6HyyJcIejU
*
“We just want to know how the world works, but in order to answer those questions you have to develop new technologies,” he said.
Funding for particle physics is already under scrutiny in North America, where the LHC’s predecessor, the Illinois-based Tevatron run by Fermilab, was closed late last year due to financial constraints.
Fermilab director Pier Oddone said money was a “big, big issue” threatening progress in the United States and he hoped the Higgs discovery would spur greater funding from U.S. agencies and Congress.
“What I would hope is that this excitement, this focus of the world’s attention on this discovery, will actually help a lot in stimulating and reestablishing particle physics in North America,” Oddone said.
De Roeck said there were similar problems in Europe, where physicists will meet in September to discuss research priorities for the next 20 years and whether they need and can afford an accelerator after the LHC.
“That is going to be a tough fight,” he said. “Despite this momentous moment we have now, it doesn’t necessarily bring the funding which one would require.”
He urged governments and other key contributors to see fundamental science as a “must” rather than a luxury.
“This is the only way we can actually move on and have a deeper understanding of how things work. It can only be in our benefit exploring that.”
*
Higgs boson update at CERN: July 4, 2012, press conference [embedded]
Scientists at the world's biggest atom smasher hailed the discovery of "the missing cornerstone of physics" Wednesday, cheering the apparent end of a decades-long quest for the Higgs boson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuZQgaGCI7c
*
With files from AFP
© 2012 National Post, a division of Postmedia Network Inc.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/07/05/higgs-boson-find-could-make-light-speed-travel-possible-scientists-hope/ [with comments]
===
What would the Higgs boson-like particle sound like?
10 July 2012
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18785232 [vid with audio embedded]
*
Listen to the Higgs Boson
Jul 10, 2012
[audio at http://www.geant.net/Media_Centre/Media_Library/Media%20Library/Higgs_Boson_Atlas.mp3 ]
http://news.discovery.com/space/listen-to-the-higgs-boson-120710.html [no comments yet]
===
Higgs Boson humorists get mass following
July 9, 2012
http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/08/tech/higgs-boson-humor/index.html [with comments]
===
(linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=77383388 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=77384218 and preceding (and any future following)
This track is an example of simulated data modelled for the ATLAS detector on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. The Higgs boson is produced in the collision of two protons and quickly decays into four muons, a type of heavy electron that is not absorbed by the detector. The tracks of the muons are shown in yellow.
CREDIT: CERN
by Denise Chow, SPACE.com Staff Writer
Date: 05 July 2012 Time: 02:31 PM ET
The discovery of a new subatomic particle that is likely the elusive Higgs boson — a particle thought to give all other matter its mass — could be an important step toward uncovering the invisible stuff that makes up the majority of the universe, physicists say.
In a much-hyped announcement yesterday (July 4) from the world's largest atom smasher, the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, scientists reported evidence of a new "Higgs-like" particle [ http://www.livescience.com/21380-higgs-boson-particle-lhc-findings.html ] with roughly 125 times the mass of the proton.
The researchers claimed a high level of certainty that the new particle is the long-sought Higgs boson [ http://www.lifeslittlemysteries.com/2652-higgs-boson-god-particle-explanation.html ], which is thought to answer how all other matter has mass [ http://www.lifeslittlemysteries.com/2641-higgs-particle-mass.html ]. The long-sought-after Higgs is the missing link in the reigning theory of particle physics, known as the Standard Model, but finding the Higgs has even wider implications: It opens the door beyond the Standard Model for explaining the existence of dark matter, the mysterious substance widely thought to make up 83 percent of all matter in the universe.
Dark matter has yet to be directly detected; its presence is inferred based on its gravitational pull. Confirming the characteristics of the newly found Higgs-like particle could account for dark matter.
While dark matter is not explained as part of the Standard Model, evidence for the enigmatic substance (based on its gravitational effects) is hard to ignore. This could mean the Standard Model is only part of a wider framework to explain the universe, said Harvey Newman, a professor of physics at the California Institute of Technology. [Top 5 Implications of Finding the Higgs Boson [ http://www.livescience.com/17433-implications-higgs-boson-discovery-lhc.html ] ]
"We can't really deny the existence of dark matter," Newman told SPACE.com from the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, in Geneva. "The Higgs particle that we found doesn't prevent us at all for searching for particles that lie beyond the Standard Model. We still need a candidate for dark matter."
If the newfound particle [ http://www.livescience.com/21382-higgs-boson-discovery-physicists-reactions.html ] is consistent with the Standard Model, physicists may be able to use these results to craft a more encompassing picture of the universe.
"You can think of what we found as the key part of the genetic blueprint of the universe," said Maria Spiropulu, another Caltech physics professor of physics, who was in the audience at the July 4 announcement in Switzerland.
"You can think of what we found as the key part of the genetic blueprint of the universe," Spiropulu told SPACE.com in an email. "You remember in 2000 what we all exclaimed and learned about how the genome will lead us to new places. This is a good analogy on the road we are down on, in terms of changing things in our understanding."
Further experiments could indicate that the composition of dark matter requires a more fundamental explanation than the Standard Model, Newman said.
"Even if we find out that this is indeed, to the best of our ability to measure, the Standard Model Higgs boson, there are all these other questions that are unanswered. One of the first questions is: What composes the dark matter in the universe [ http://www.space.com/15936-astronomy-mysteries-science-countdown.html ]? There's no room in the Standard Model of the universe to make up the dark matter, so we have to look at other candidate alternatives."
One such alternative is known as "supersymmetry" or SUSY, which is an extension of the Standard Model. Supersymmetry suggests that every known elemental particle has a partner that is identical except for its spin. For instance, photons would have partner "photinos," and electroweak bosons would have duplicate "electroweak-inos."
"Now a Higgs-like sector in SUSY becomes very rich," Spiropulu said. "You have a set of "higgs-inos" as partners. How the dark matter candidate behaves has to do with how it shakes hands with the electroweak-inos and the higgs-inos. So the (very, very) weakly interacting massive particle of SUSY that fits the bill for the dark matter composition [ http://www.space.com/13377-big-bang-theory-universe-today.html ] of the universe is coupled to the existence of some Higgs and its supersymmetric extension."
The confirmation process for the new particle will take time, as physicists run more experiments and analyze wider sets of data to be sure they are not witnessing anomalous events. Still, it is an exciting time for science.
"Whatever happens, Standard Model or no, we are at the edge of a tremendous generation of exploration," Newman said, "either to find out what's wrong with the Standard Model, or to go back to looking for what are the more fundamental things that are outside the model, and how we explain those."
Copyright © 2012 TechMediaNetwork.com
http://www.space.com/16444-higgs-boson-particle-dark-matter.html [with comments] [also at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48084815/ns/technology_and_science-space/ (with comments)]
===
Higgs boson find could make light-speed travel possible, scientists say
Unlocking great mysteries of the world: Joe Incandela (R), CMS experiment spokesman, gestures next to Rolf Heuer, CERN Director General, talk to reporters at CERN near Geneva on Wednesday.
REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
National Post Wire Services
Jul 5, 2012 – 5:36 PM ET | Last Updated: Jul 6, 2012 5:15 PM ET
The potential discovery of the Higgs boson is a gateway to a new era that could see humanity unlock some of the universe’s great mysteries, including dark matter and light-speed travel, scientists have claimed.
The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) unveiled data from the Large Hadron Collider Wednesday “consistent with the long-sought Higgs boson,” an elusive particle thought to help explain why matter has mass.
Scientists went into a frenzy following the announcement, speculating that it could one day make light-speed travel possible by “un-massing” objects or allow huge items to be launched into space by “switching off” the Higgs.
CERN scientist Albert de Roeck likened it to the discovery of electricity, when he said humanity could never have imagined its future applications.
“What’s really important for the Higgs is that it explains how the world could be the way that it is in the first millionth of a second in the Big Bang,” de Roeck said.
“Can we apply it to something? At this moment my imagination is too small to do that.”
A representation of traces of a proton-to-proton collision measured in the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experience in the search for the Higgs boson.
AFP/Getty Images
Physicist Ray Volkas said “almost everybody” was hoping that, rather than fitting the so-called Standard Model of physics — a theory explaining how particles fit together in the Universe — the Higgs boson would prove to be “something a bit different.”
“If that was the case that would point to all sorts of new physics — physics that might have something to do with dark matter,” he said, referring to the hypothetical invisible matter thought to make up much of the universe.
“It could be, for example, that the Higgs particle acts as a bridge between ordinary matter, which makes up atoms, and dark matter, which we know is a very important component of the universe.”
“That would have really fantastic implications for understanding all of the matter in the universe, not just ordinary atoms,” he added.
De Roeck said scrutinizing the new particle and determining whether it supported something other than the Standard Model would be the next step for CERN scientists.
Clarification could be expected by the beginning of 2013. Definitive proof that it fitted the Standard Model could take until 2015 when the LHC had more power and could harvest more data.
The LHC is due to go offline for a two-year refit in December that will see its firepower doubled to 14 trillion electronvolts — a huge step forward in the search for new particles and clues about what holds them all together.
De Roeck said he would find it a “little boring at the end if it turns out that this is just the Standard Model Higgs.”
Breakthrough: (L to R) British physicist Peter Higgs, European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) Director General Rolf-Dieter Heuer, CMS experiment spokesperson Joe Incandela, ATLAS experiment spokesperson Fabiola Gianotti, and Former CERN Director-General Christopher Llewelyn-Smith pose at a press on July 4, 2012 at CERN on Wednesday.
FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/GettyImages
Instead, he was hoping it would be a “gateway or a portal to new physics, to new theories which are actually running nature” such as supersymmetry, which hypothesizes that there are five different Higgs particles governing mass.
The hunt for the Higgs — the logical next step of which de Roeck said would be searching for, and eventually being able to produce, dark matter particles — has already had huge benefits to medicine and technology.
Volkas said the Internet was born at CERN as a solution to high-volume data-sharing and other major spin-offs were likely to follow as physicists continued to “push the boundaries of pure science”.
*
Best of Higgs Field Theory physicists [embedded]
Published on Jul 4, 2012 by CERNTV
Soundbytes from the interviews to Peter Higgs, Francois Englert, Carl Hagen and Gerald Guralnik, recorded at CERN on the announcement of the latest results from ATLAS and CMS on the Higgs boson searches.
CERN Press release: CERN experiments observe particle consistent with long-sought Higgs boson http://cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2012/PR17.12E.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6HyyJcIejU
*
“We just want to know how the world works, but in order to answer those questions you have to develop new technologies,” he said.
Funding for particle physics is already under scrutiny in North America, where the LHC’s predecessor, the Illinois-based Tevatron run by Fermilab, was closed late last year due to financial constraints.
Fermilab director Pier Oddone said money was a “big, big issue” threatening progress in the United States and he hoped the Higgs discovery would spur greater funding from U.S. agencies and Congress.
“What I would hope is that this excitement, this focus of the world’s attention on this discovery, will actually help a lot in stimulating and reestablishing particle physics in North America,” Oddone said.
De Roeck said there were similar problems in Europe, where physicists will meet in September to discuss research priorities for the next 20 years and whether they need and can afford an accelerator after the LHC.
“That is going to be a tough fight,” he said. “Despite this momentous moment we have now, it doesn’t necessarily bring the funding which one would require.”
He urged governments and other key contributors to see fundamental science as a “must” rather than a luxury.
“This is the only way we can actually move on and have a deeper understanding of how things work. It can only be in our benefit exploring that.”
*
Higgs boson update at CERN: July 4, 2012, press conference [embedded]
Published on Jul 4, 2012 by thefinancialpost
Scientists at the world's biggest atom smasher hailed the discovery of "the missing cornerstone of physics" Wednesday, cheering the apparent end of a decades-long quest for the Higgs boson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuZQgaGCI7c
*
With files from AFP
© 2012 National Post, a division of Postmedia Network Inc.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/07/05/higgs-boson-find-could-make-light-speed-travel-possible-scientists-hope/ [with comments]
===
What would the Higgs boson-like particle sound like?
10 July 2012
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18785232 [vid with audio embedded]
*
Listen to the Higgs Boson
Jul 10, 2012
[audio at http://www.geant.net/Media_Centre/Media_Library/Media%20Library/Higgs_Boson_Atlas.mp3 ]
http://news.discovery.com/space/listen-to-the-higgs-boson-120710.html [no comments yet]
===
Higgs Boson humorists get mass following
July 9, 2012
http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/08/tech/higgs-boson-humor/index.html [with comments]
===
(linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=77383388 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=77384218 and preceding (and any future following)
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