CERN researchers find first evidence of direct decay of Higgs boson
CERN researchers find first evidence of direct decay of Higgs boson
Researchers at CERN have found the first indication for the direct decay of the Higgs boson into fermions. This is the first clear indication that particle discovered in the year 2012 is the Higgs boson.
These findings suggest that bosons decay and act as fermions. Fermions are groups of particles that also include leptons and quarks. This is a prediction of the Standard Model of particle physics. Markus Klute who is an assistant professor of physics at the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) has discussed how “this is an enormous breakthrough”.
Particles like electrons get their mass coupling through the Higgs field which is an extremely exciting new discovery. In the month of July, 2012, researchers from ATLAS and Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiments at the CERN European Organisation for Nuclear Research indicated that they had observed a new particle that fell in the mass region of 125 to 126 gigaelectronvolts (GeV).
Basic preliminary research indicates a high degree of consistency between the properties of the new particule and those predicted for the Higgs boson by the Standard Model. However, a significant amount of research is needed in order to uncover more about this feature.
Researchers are also wanting to check if there is a single Higgs or many different Higgs particles. There have been various predictions by a significant number of extensions of the Standard Model according to Klute. What one is trying to do is make out whether there is consistency between the particle and the Higgs boson predicted in the Standard Model. Researchers are trying to ascertain whether it is one of the many Higgs bosons or even an imposter that has a different origin.
Analyses of data produced by research at CERN's Large Hadrom Collider in Switzerland has shown that much like the Higgs boson of the Standard Model, new particles display no spin and there is rapid decay by splitting into pairs of photons, W bosons and Z bosons. There is considerable uncertainty about whether the decay could also be to fermion pairs.
The team from the CMS Collaboration has also indicated that the bosons decay to fermions in a manner consistent with the Standard Model Higgs. The main features of this new particle in its coupling to fermions and bosons has been established. What has also been scrutinised is the spin-parity structure and its level of consistency with the Standard Model.
To ascertain whether the particles could decay into fermions, the researchers have fired protons at one another in a 6 metre diameter solenoid and specialised detectors were used to determine if the particles produced resulted in collisions. Researchers were also hunting for particles called tau leptons that have a mass of around 1.7 GeV which makes them 3,500 times larger than the little sibling the electron. What they found was evidence of a direct decay of Higgs boson particles into Fermions. With this discovery, scientific research in this area has taken a massive stride.
