The discovery of the Higgs boson in the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the LHC in July 2012 will be remembered as one of the milestones in particle physics. This has been recognized, quite rightly, the award of this year’s Prince of Asturias Peter Higgs, Francois Englert, and CERN. Proof of this is that no one in the scientific community was surprised when later this year it was announced that the Nobel Prize would also Englert and Higgs. All these awards should be considered a thrilling climax to a story deserved that lasted nearly 50 years. What happened 50 years ago?
seeking possible explanations that allow understand why some particles, such as intermediate bosons of the weak interactions (the W’sy Z) have mass while others do not, as was the case of the photon, particle mediates electromagnetic interactions, three important scientific papers were published in 1964, shaping a theoretical proposal particularly elegant and witty. The authors of the first of three works were Robert Brout (who died in 2011) and Francois Englert, and almost simultaneously published the second being its author Peter Higgs. Although the conceptual idea was the same in both works, the proposed mechanism as it came to be known Higgs mechanism. And it was Peter Higgs who explicitly mentioned in their work that the mechanism implied the existence of a new particle, as always, has been known as “Higgs boson.” Soon after, also in 1964, published the third work, proposing the same idea, and the authors were Guralnik, Hagen and Kibble. All indications are that they had reached the same conclusion as Brout, Englert and Higgs independently.
Higgs mechanism allows us to understand what is known as “spontaneous breaking of the electroweak symmetry” and also why particles have mass. A great step forward in our understanding of elementary particles and their interactions, and a cornerstone of what is now known as the Standard Model. The Standard Model is our bible when describing any process we want to study particle physics. And it is our calculation tool in making predictions which can then experimentally verified. Every experimental measurement has been done since the 60s has not only confirmed that the proposed company Peter Higgs and works extremely well. It’s really fascinating intellectual achievement of having been able to imagine something that explains things so complex Why wait’ve missed it so many years to give deserved awards to these theoretical physicists?
is the standard by which we live by the scientists. How beautiful and elegant it is a proposal, you must have a complete and rigorous experimental validation before being elevated to the status of theory. All predictions must be verified. Meanwhile we can only speak of “models”. Is the experiment has the last word, and who must make the final quality seal. And the Standard Model was missing to validate a prediction: the existence of the Higgs boson. This last ingredient has been extraordinarily difficult to confirm, despite the effort that has been made for decades by the experimental physics community. It was necessary to build a machine like the LHC so extraordinary, and some as huge and complex detectors like ATLAS and CMS. And it has been made possible by a laboratory like CERN, and a scientific community that has shown up where you can get to work in teams and in a global project. As stated to the jury that awarded the prize, “the discovery of the Higgs boson is a prime example of how Europe has led a collective effort to solve one of the deepest mysteries of physics”. That’s why it seems especially fitting that the Prince of Asturias included among the winners at CERN.
But the important thing today is that the effort has been worthwhile. Many are those who may feel proud to have contributed. And among them there are also scientific and technical Spanish. Our entire community welcomes the award given to Peter Higgs, Francois Englert and CERN. It is certainly well deserved. Today we know that the Higgs boson is more than a brilliant theoretical physicists proposed. We have ample evidence of its existence, and measure their properties, so far, are consistent in all respects with the predictions of the Standard Model. Remains to be done, and there are many who think that they will eventually find some evidence that there is physics beyond the Standard Model. Again, we have to wait to see what the experimental data taken at the LHC ATLAS and CMS, as of 2015. In any case, I think it’s time to stop talking about model and give the title it deserves: it is all a Theory.
Marcos class=”nota_pie”>is Director of Basic Research CIEMAT
No comments:
Post a Comment