Large Hadron Collider preliminary findings support existence of Higgs boson

Thursday, July 5, 2012

CMS, the Compact Muon Solenoid, a particle detector that formed part of the Large Hadron Collider.
Image: Eetwartti.

A Toroidal LHC Apparatus (ATLAS), one of the other particle detectors at CERN.
Image: Nikolai Schwerg.

As reported by CERN yesterday, preliminary results indicate the discovery of the long-sought Higgs boson, the fundamental particle needed by theStandard model to explain the phenomenon of mass and gravity.

The experimental results announced today were reached by combining datasets produced by various particle detectors at CERN. Dr Fabiola Gianotti, spokeswoman for the ATLAS team at the Large Hadron Collider noted: "We observe in our data clear signs of a new particle, at the level of five sigma, in the mass region around 126 GeV."

Before today, “the strength of the signal only led to a confidence level of about 90% that it was real. Nice, but not enough to claim a discovery. Today that all changed. Two different detectors at the LHC both independently found a strong signal between 125 and 126 GeV at about the 5 sigma level – that means they can claim a 99.9999% confidence this signal is real!”, explained Phil Plait, blogger at Discover magazine.

The results are expected to be confirmed later this year, at which point the Higgs boson will officially enter the ranks of fundamental particles discovered.