Higgs particle could be found by Christmas By Pallab Ghosh Science correspondent, BBC News Hunt for Higgs gains momentum as the rate of collisions inside the LHC exceeds expectations Continue reading the main story Related Stories Higgs boson range narrows at LHC LHC 'has two years to find Higgs' Guide to the Large Hadron Collider The hunt for the Higgs particle is well ahead of schedule, say researchers at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Earlier this year they said they would either discover the Higgs or confirm it does not exist by the end of 2012. Now, because the machine is working so well, an LHC spokesman, Professor Guido Tonelli, has told BBC News that the search could be completed much sooner. The Higgs Boson is the particle that in the physics "Standard Model" allows other particles to have mass. Discovery or elimination of the particle is one of the LHC's major objectives; and it could come as early as Christmas 2011. "We could discover the Standard Model version of the Higgs Boson or exclude it earlier than expected. Could we discover it by Christmas? In principle, yes," said Professor Tonelli The Higgs particle was postulated by physicists in 1964 to explain how other sub-atomic particles have mass, and remains the only major particle in the Standard Model, the dominant current theory of sub-atomic physics, yet to be observed. The collider is a giant accelerator machine housed in a 27km-long (17 miles) circular tunnel under the French-Swiss border. Two beams of proton particles are fired around this subterranean "ring" and smashed together at crossing points. Continue reading the main story Big detectors are located at these points to look for new particles in the sub-atomic wreckage of the collisions. The physicists measure the number of collisions they see in units called "inverse femtobarns", and were aiming to collect 5 inverse femtobarns' worth of data by the end of 2012. But, said Professor Tonelli who speaks for LHC's CMS experiment, the LHC has already collected 2.5 inverse femtobarns - the equivalent of 175,000 billion collisions. So in the space of a few months, the machine has collected half the data it was expected to collect in two years. Fairly quickly The current run of collisions designed to detect the Higgs will be completed by the end of October. Professor Tonelli believes that if this rate of progress continues and nothing goes wrong, there is an outside chance of gathering sufficient data by then and analysing it fairly quickly. The possibility of an early Christmas present for the physics community was raised at the beginning of the week by PhD student Richard Ruiz in the highly respected physics blogsite Quantum Diaries . He wrote: Continue reading the main story “ Start Quote This would be the first time that we would have scientific evidence that this theory which has been so successful in the last 40 years must be definitely abandoned” Professor Guido Tonelli LHC Spokesman "What this means is that by the end of this year, not next year, we will definitely know whether or not the Higgs Boson as predicted by the Standard model exists." But although the discovery of the Higgs by Christmas is possible, it is by no means assured. Five inverse femtobarns of data may not be enough to make a definitive statement on the Higgs, according to Richard Hawkings, who speaks for the LHC's Atlas experiment. "It's a bit optimistic. If the Higgs had been in an easy to find area then yes, we may have been able to have discovered it by Christmas," he said. "But what we have discovered in the past couple of months is that its in a region that's much harder to find. This will require more data and more time." Triumph Even so, if nothing goes wrong with the supercollider, researchers will have collected the 10 inverse femtobarns of data they need to make a cast iron statement about the existence of the Standard Model version of the Higgs by next summer. If they do discover the Higgs, it would be a triumph for the Standard Model, making it a complete theory. If they do not, it would be an even more exciting outcome, according to Professor Tonelli. "This would be the first time that we would have scientific evidence that this theory which has been so successful in the last 40 years must be definitely abandoned and we should look for another theory." 尽管我个人对标准模型不看好，觉得不够美，希望彻底打破重建。 但如果真的能在圣诞节，见证上帝粒子的存在，或者彻底证明不存在，那都是无比激动人心的事情，是神的启示。
Unusual data bumps detected by two teams at Large Hadron Collider thought to be glimpse of elusive source of particle mass Ian Sample , Science correspondent guardian.co.uk , Friday 22 July 2011 20.09 BST Article history A technician at work in the Atlas control room. 'Bumps' in the data hint at presence of Higgs boson. Photograph: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images Scientists may have caught their first glimpse of the elusive Higgs boson , which is thought to give mass to the basic building blocks of nature. Researchers at the Large Hadron Collider at Cern , the European particle physics lab near Geneva, announced the findings at a conference on Friday . The world's most powerful atom smasher hunts for signs of new physics by slamming subatomic particles together at nearly the speed of light in an 18-mile round tunnel beneath the French-Swiss border. Speaking at the meeting, teams working on two of the collider's huge detectors, Atlas and CMS, independently reported unusual bumps in their data that could be the first hints of the particle. Physicists stressed that it was too early to know whether the signals were due to the missing particle. Bumps that look like new discoveries can be caused by statistical fluctuations in data, flaws in computer models and other glitches, they said. "We cannot say anything today, but clearly it's intriguing," Fabiola Gianotti, spokeswoman for the 3,000-strong Atlas team , said. She said the picture would become clearer as the groups gathered more data and combined results in the next few months. The view was shared by Guido Tonelli, spokesman for the CMS group , said more data was needed to understand whether the bumps were due to "statistical fluctuations or possible hints of a signal". The long-sought particle was first postulated in 1964 by Peter Higgs, a physicist at Edinburgh University , in a theory that described how fundamental particles gained mass from an invisible field that pervaded the cosmos. The field has been compared to a snowfield that clings to particles and slows them down to different extents. Light particles pass through the field swiftly as if they have skis on, while heavy particles trudge through as though walking barefoot. The boson was nicknamed the "God particle" in 1993 by the Nobel prize-winning physicist, Leon Lederman . The monicker is detested by Higgs. "I find it embarrassing because, though I'm not a believer myself, I think it is the kind of misuse of terminology which I think might offend some people," he said. From previous work, the Higgs boson was thought to have a mass somewhere between 114 and 185GeV (gigaelectronvolts) – one GeV is roughly equivalent to the mass of a proton, a subatomic particle found in atomic nuclei. The Atlas team reported a Higgs-like bump in their data between 120 and 140GeV. In a later session, the CMS groupannounced two bumps in the sameregion. Matt Strassler, a theoretical physicist at Rutgers University in New Jersey, commented on his blog : "Exciting … but far too early to be sure this is anything interesting." He added: "This is certainly something we'll be watching. 来源： http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/jul/22/cern-higgs-boson-god-particle 中文翻译： http://news.sciencenet.cn/htmlnews/2011/7/249974.shtm 真是希格斯玻色子吗？构成 自然界基本构件(粒子)的质量的家伙？ 奇妙的上帝粒子现身了还是实验统计误差？ 拭目以待.
标签: 上帝粒子
