Boson

When streams of ultra-fast protons collide, a Higgs boson might pop into existence for the briefest instant before decaying into lighter particles.In that moment, physicists can work backwards to estimate the mass of what could be the most important and yet most elusive particle in the Standard Model.Having crunched the numbers on a mind-boggling number of proton collisions using the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), physicists now have the most precise figure yet for this all-important property.First reported in July, the…

A refined hunt for the extremely rare transformation of the Higgs boson has delivered results, providing the first evidence of a process that could hint at unknown particles.Reconciling the results of several years' worth of proton crashes inside two different detectors at the European Organization for Nuclear Research's (CERN) Large Hadron Collider (LHC), physicists bumped up the statistical precision of the rate at which the famous 'mass-giving' particle decayed into a photon and a Z boson.The results, shared at the…

A team of researchers at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider have measured the mass of the W boson and found it to be in line with the Standard Model of particle physics, the overarching theory that describes the four fundamental forces and the characteristics of the smallest units of matter.What Is Carbon Capture? With Gizmodo’s Molly Taft | TechmodoThe team’s finding counters a precise measurement taken last year by a collaboration of hundreds of scientists atthe CDF Collaboration, who were happily surprised to find that the…

An event display from the CMS experiment, used in a search for additional heavy Higgs bosons. Credit: CERNWhere does the Higgs boson come from?The <span class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>CERN</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>Established in 1954 and headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, CERN is a European research organization that operates the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the largest particle physics laboratory in the…

Last year a new finding in particle physics stunned scientists: a fundamental particle responsible for one of the Universe's four fundamental forces was heavier than predicted.The discovery of a discrepancy between the W boson's theorized and experimental masses promised new insights beyond the Standard Model, the theoretical blueprint that describes how matter behaves.Now scientists have run the same numbers again using an updated technique, this time discovering the particle's mass is a close fit with the Standard…

This month marks the 10th anniversary of the discovery of the Higgs boson, a true “Holy Grail” of science that had eluded detection for almost 50 years. But what exactly is this particle, and why is it so important? What has it taught us in the decade since its discovery – and more importantly, what could it teach us in the next decade?The Standard Model of particle physics predicts that the universe is made up of 12 elementary matter particles, four force carriers and one final particle that holds it all together – the…

Event recorded with the CMS detector in 2012 at a proton-proton center of mass energy of 8 TeV. The event shows characteristics expected from the decay of the SM Higgs boson to a pair of photons (dashed yellow lines and green towers). Credit: CERNChristoph Paus, the <span class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>MIT</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>MIT is an acronym for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is a…

The LZ central detector in the clean room at Sanford Underground Research Facility. Photo: Matthew Kapust, Sanford Underground Research FacilityThe LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment team has announced the results from its first scientific run today; the experiment is the world’s most sensitive dark matter detector, and though it did not find any dark matter in this first round, the team confirmed that the experiment is working as expected.The LZ experiment detector is made up nested tanks of liquid xenon, each 1.5 meters tall…

Ten years ago, scientists announced the discovery of the Higgs boson, which helps explain why elementary particles (the smallest building blocks of nature) have mass. For particle physicists, this was the end of a decades-long and hugely difficult journey – and arguably the most important result in the history of the field. But this end also marked the beginning of a new era of experimental physics. In the past decade, measurements of the properties of the Higgs boson have confirmed the…

Ten years after it discovered the Higgs boson, the Large Hadron Collider is about to start smashing protons together at unprecedented energy levels in its quest to reveal more secrets about how the universe works.  The world's largest and most powerful particle collider started back up in April after a three-year break for upgrades in preparation for its third run. From Tuesday it will run around the clock for nearly four years at a record energy of 13.6 trillion electronvolts, the European Organisation for Nuclear…