LHC Experiment May Have Found Higgs Boson

According to a memo that leaked on the Internet, it could be that one of the four particle detectors installed on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) managed to discover the Higgs boson.

This particle is the reason why the 27-kilometer-long accelerator was built on the French-Swiss border, near Geneva. The Standard Model indicates that the force carrier is solely responsible for allowing energy to acquire mass.

Discovering it would certify the Model as one of the most important scientific achievements of all times, and would allow physicists to move on in their quest of developing a unifying theory of everything, Wired reports.

The memo was first posted in a comment on an entry at the blog “Not Even Wrong,” which is being edited by physics expert Peter Woit. Its contents are currently being reviewed by experts, but the document states the opinions of four physicists who believe the boson may have been found.

They argue that the detection was made possible through the use of the ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS) particle detectors, one of the main instruments on the LHC. But they also reveal that the particle may be decaying at a higher rate than current models predict.

The detection took place as a potential Higgs particle was decaying into two photons of very high energy. The decay rate was a lot higher than anyone anticipated, and this is one of the main reasons why the work in now being rigorously reviewed.

“The present result is the first definitive observation of physics beyond the standard model. Exciting new physics, including new particles, may be expected to be found in the very near future,” the memo reveals.

Contacted for a response, officials from the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) told the media that the results are not yet official. There are thousands of physicists working on the LHC in general, and they need to review these results as well.

“It’s way, way too early to say if there’s anything in it or not. The vast majority of these notes get knocked down before they ever see the light of day,” explains James Gillies, who is a spokesman for CERN.

Regardless of whether this particular finding is confirmed or not, experts now know that the most energetic particle accelerator ever built is now capable of conducting extremely advanced studies.

The LHC develops a total energy output of 14 teraelectronvolts (TeV). Each of its beams can accelerate protons or lead nuclei to energy levels of 7 Tev. The collisions that ensure are tremendously powerful.

Already, physicists have observed the formation of quark-gluon plasma, a state of matter that is believed to have permeated the Universe within fractions of a second after the Big Bang.