Latest CERN results indicate new particle is Higgs boson

Latest results from the Large Hadron Collider at CERN further reinforce that the particle discovered last year is a Higgs boson.

Following the results, scientists are more certain than ever about the identity of the particle discovered last year. "Still nothing conflicts with the idea it's a Higgs boson," said an Imperial scientist.

In July 2012 researchers announced that experiments carried out over many years at the Large Hadron Collider led them to be 99 per cent certain they had discovered a new boson particle with a mass around 125 times the mass of a proton.

Despite the efforts that have been going on since the 1960s when the theory was proposed by scientists, including Imperial College London's Emeritus Professor Tom Kibble, no evidence had yet been found of this renowned Higgs boson.

Some reflect that it is now time to take this leap and call this new particle the Higgs boson.

Using information about what happens when particles smash together at high speeds in the LHC, physicists are looking for evidence of a newly created particle that matches a specific set of characteristics that are predicted by the Standard Model of Particle Physics, the most complete theory physicists currently have to describe the laws of fundamental physics.

Scientists around Europe have been using powerful computers to analyse data collected since the LHC began operating in 2009 and periodically meet to discuss their conclusions. The latest meeting was held this week at the Moriond Conference in La Thuile in the Italian Alps.

Professor Geoff Hall from the Department of Physics at Imperial College London, who is also UK spokesperson the LHC's CMS experiment, said: "Nothing has emerged which conflicts with the assignment of the new particle as a Higgs boson. Tests of the particle's 'spin' are not yet complete to our satisfaction, but these results examining one of its key properties are looking very compelling now."

Dr Oliver Buchmuller, Senior Lecturer in High Energy Physics at Imperial College London, who carries out research at the LHC, said: "We have learned a lot since July 2012 and one might wonder why we can't simply call our particle a Higgs boson from now on.

"Of course work will continue to measure the properties of the particle more closely - we need to understand if it is the Higgs boson predicted by the Standard Model or a Higgs boson relating to a new kind of physics - but it might be time to finally give this new particle its name," he continued.

Imperial's Professor Tejinder (Jim) Virdee FRS, said: "Some theories describe physics beyond the Standard Model and predict that there should be a larger number of slightly different Higgs bosons. Much more data will be needed to measure its properties sufficiently accurately to address these questions."

"We have high hopes for the next run of the LHC, which will begin in 2015 and continue into the next decade. Running the machine at almost twice the energy of the first run of the LHC should produce these bosons at twice the rate to study its properties but hopefully also to uncover some new kinds of physics,  which many of us believe to be there."

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