Search For The Higgs Boson

The history of particle physics, the hunt for the most elusive particle, and the fundamental questions the search has inspired How did physicists combine talent and technology to discover the Higgs boson, the last piece in our inventory of the subatomic world? How did the Higgs change our understanding of the universe? And now, nearly a decade after its detection, what comes next? Answering these questions, Ivo van Vulpen—a CERN particle physicist and member of the team behind the detection—invites us on a journey to the frontiers of our knowledge. Enjoy van Vulpen’s accessible explanation of the history of particle physics and of concepts like quantum mechanics and relativity—and ponder his inquiries regarding the search for new particles (to explain dark matter), a new force (to combine the existing fundamental forces), and new phenomena (undiscovered dimensions of space). This is a lively account of work at the world’s highest-energy particle accelerator, with inspiring personal reflections on humanity’s discoveries deeper and deeper into the world of the very small.

This book provides a general description of the search for and discovery of the Higgs boson (particle) at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. The goal is to provide a relatively brief overview of the issues, instruments and techniques relevant for this search; written by a physicist who was directly involved. The Higgs boson mat be the one particle that was studied the most before its discovery and the story from postulation in 1964 to detection in 2012 is a fascinating one. The story is told here while detailing the fundamentals of particle physics.

The Higgs boson is the rock star of fundamental particles, catapulting CERN, the laboratory where it was found, into the global spotlight. But what is it, why does it matter, and what exactly is CERN? In the late 1940s, a handful of visionaries were working to steer Europe towards a more peaceful future through science, and CERN, the European particle physics laboratory, was duly born. James Gillies tells the gripping story of particle physics, from the original atomists of ancient Greece, through the people who made the crucial breakthroughs, to CERN itself, one of the most ambitious scientific undertakings of our time, and its eventual confirmation of the Higgs boson. Weaving together the scientific and political stories of CERN's development, the book reveals how particle physics has evolved from being the realm of solitary genius to a global field of human endeavour, with CERN's Large Hadron Collider as its frontier research tool.

The Higgs Boson: Searching for the God Particle by the Editors of Scientific American Updated 2017 Edition! For the fifth anniversary of one of the biggest discoveries in physics, we’ve updated this eBook to include our continuing analysis of the discovery, of the questions it answers and those it raises. As the old adage goes, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Where there is effect, there must be cause. The planet Neptune was found in 1846 because the mathematics of Newton's laws, when applied to the orbit of Uranus, said some massive body had to be there. Astronomers eventually found it, using the best telescopes available to peer into the sky. This same logic is applied to the search for the Higgs boson. One consequence of the prevailing theory of physics, called the Standard Model, is that there has to be some field that gives particles their particular masses. With that there has to be a corresponding particle, made by creating waves in the field, and this is the Higgs boson, the so-called God particle. This eBook chronicles the search – and demonstrates the power of a good theory. Based on the Standard Model, physicists believed something had to be there, but it wasn't until the Large Hadron Collider was built that anyone could see evidence of the Higgs – and finally in July 2012, they did. A Higgs-like particle was found near the energies scientists expected to find it. Now, armed with better evidence and better questions, the scientific process continues. This eBook gathers the best reporting and analysis from Scientific American to explain that process – the theories, the search, the ongoing questions. In essence, everything you need to know to separate Higgs from hype.

"The Higgs boson ... is the key to understanding why mass exists and how atoms are possible. After billions of dollars and decades of effort by more than six thousand researchers at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland--a doorway is opening into the mind-boggling world of dark matter and beyond. Caltech physicist and acclaimed writer Sean Carroll explains both the importance of the Higgs boson and the ultimately human story behind the greatest scientific achievement of our time"--Publisher

A fascinating tour of particle physics from Nobel Prize winner Leon Lederman. At the root of particle physics is an invincible sense of curiosity. Leon Lederman embraces this spirit of inquiry as he moves from the Greeks' earliest scientific observations to Einstein and beyond to chart this unique arm of scientific study. His survey concludes with the Higgs boson, nicknamed the God Particle, which scientists hypothesize will help unlock the last secrets of the subatomic universe, quarks and all--it's the dogged pursuit of this almost mystical entity that inspires Lederman's witty and accessible history.

The recent observation of the Higgs boson has been hailed as the scientific discovery of the century and led to the 2013 Nobel Prize in physics. This book describes the detailed science behind the decades-long search for this elusive particle at the Large Electron Positron Collider at CERN and at the Tevatron at Fermilab and its subsequent discovery and characterization at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Written by physicists who played leading roles in this epic search and discovery, this book is an authoritative and pedagogical exposition of the portrait of the Higgs boson that has emerged from a large number of experimental measurements. As the first of its kind, this book should be of interest to graduate students and researchers in particle physics.

The Higgs boson is an undiscovered elementary particle, thought to be a vital piece of the closely fitting jigsaw of particle physics. Like all particles, it has wave properties akin to those ripples on the surface of a pond which has been disturbed; indeed, only when the ripples travel as a well defined group is it sensible to speak of a particle at all. In quantum language the analogue of the water surface which carries the waves is called a field. Each type of particle has its own corresponding field. The Higgs field is a particularly simple one -- it has the same properties viewed from every direction, and in important respects in indistinguishable from empty space. Thus physicists conceive of the Higgs field being "switched on", pervading all of space and endowing it with "grain" like that of a plank of wood. The direction of the grain in undetectable, and only becomes important once the Higgs' interactions with other particles are taken into account. for instance, particles call vector bosons can travel with the grain, in which case they move easily for large distances and may be observed as photons - that is, particles of light that we can see or record using a camera; or against, in which case their effective range is much shorter, and we call them W or Z particles. These play a central role in the physics of nuclear reactions, such as those occurring in the core of the sun. The Higgs field enables us to view these apparently unrelated phenomenon as two sides of the same coin; both may be described in terms of the properties of the same vector bosons. When particles of matter such as electrons or quarks (elementary constituents of protons and neutrons, which in turn constitute the atomic nucleus) travel through the grain, they are constantly flipped "head-over-heels". this forces them to move more slowly than their natural speed, that of light, by making them heavy.

The biggest science story of our time, Massive spans four decades weaving together the personal stories and intense rivalry behind the search for the 'God' particle or Higgs boson - the particle that gives mass (or weight) to all things.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the biggest, and by far the most powerful, machine ever built. A project of CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, its audacious purpose is to re-create, in a 16.5-mile-long circular tunnel under the French-Swiss countryside, the immensely hot and dense conditions that existed some 13.7 billion years ago within the first trillionth of a second after the fiery birth of our universe. In Present at the Creation, Amir D. Aczel takes us inside the control rooms, as an international team of researchers begins to discover whether a multibillion-euro investment will fulfill its promise: to find empirical confirmation of theories in physics and cosmology. Through the eyes and words of the men and women who conceived and built CERN and the LHC, Aczel enriches all of us with a firm grounding in the scientific concepts necessary to appreciate fully the stunning July 4, 2012 discovery of the Higgs Boson. Newly updated in the wake of the discovery, Present at the Creation tells the story of perhaps the greatest experiment in the history of science.