First-Ever Evidence of Higgs Boson Decay Opens New Doors for Particle Physics

[Judi Lynn]

By Don Lincoln, Senior Scientist, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; Adjunct Professor of Physics, University of Notre Dame | August 28, 2018 05:26pm ET

If you’ve been a science fan for the last few years, you’re aware of the exciting results to emerge from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which in 2012 found the Higgs boson, the subatomic particle responsible for giving mass to fundamental subatomic particles.

Today, physicists have another exciting announcement to add to the Higgs saga: They have made the first unambiguous observation of Higgs bosons decaying into a matter-antimatter pair of bottom quarks. Surprisingly, the Higgs bosons decay most often in this way.

The new announcement shows a strong agreement between the theoretical predictions and the experimental data, which could in turn set strict constraints on ideas of more fundamental physics that strive to explain why the Higgs boson even exists.

Field of dreams
In the 1960s, researchers were investigating linkages between the force of electromagnetism and the weak nuclear force, which is responsible for some types of radioactive decays. Although the two forces seemed distinct, it turned out that they both arose from a common and more fundamental force, now called the electroweak force.

More:
https://www.livescience.com/63455-higgs-decays-to-bottom-quarks.html?utm_source=notification

[lastlib]

1. I love this stuff!

God, I WISH they would let me play with subatomic particles! (There's an obviously good reason why they don't! )

[In_The_Wind]

2. ya think

[qazplm135]

3. play with them?

guess what, you're soaking in them right now!