فیزیکدان های صنعتی اصفهان IUT Physicists

"I can confirm that a particle has been discovered that is consistent with the Higgs boson theory," said John Womersley, chief executive of the UK's Science & Technology Facilities Council.

The result is still preliminary, but “it's very strong and very solid,” according to Joe Incandela, spokesman for one of the two teams hunting for the Higgs particle.

The discovery, which is due to a great extent to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) team, is the strongest-yet in favor of the particle’s existence.

The Higgs boson is the last subatomic elemental particle predicted by the Standard Model to be discovered experimentally.

The model is a fundamental part of quantum physics, which manages to incorporate three of the four known fundamental interactions – the electromagnetic, weak, and strong nuclear interactions – meaning only gravity is excluded. Since its formulation in the mid 20th century, Standard Model has been considered increasingly credible as new discoveries conformed to its predictions.

The boson, which is responsible for elementary particles having mass, has been evading physicists’ eyes decades, because they didn’t have the means to observe it. The LHC, the world’s biggest particle accelerator, was built partially for the purpose of finding the Higgs boson.

Signs of the particle were discovered through thousands of experiments at the LHC, where protons and antiprotons were smashed at almost-light speeds. The collisions produced new particles in their wake. Many of them can exist only fractions of seconds before decaying into lighter ones.

Scientists were analyzing the resulting particles to establish what produced them and pinpoint the rare events of the appearance of the yet-unseen particle. They also had to ensure that what they got were actual sightings rather than quirks of probability, which rules quantum physics.

The Higgs boson is often referred to as “the God particle” by the media. The name comes from the title of a popular science book by Leon Lederman, who nicknamed the particle in that way due to its importance to modern particle physics. However many scientists dislike the name, because it exaggerates the role Higgs boson actually plays.

It was first theorised in the 1960s by Edinburgh-based physicist Peter Higgs, amongst others, and is credited for giving all other particles mass. But until now, it has proved impossible to pin down.

To do so, scientists use the LHC to smash together protons at almost the speed of light and scour the debris for traces of particles that sprang into existence for just a fraction of a second before disintegrating.

Sources have told the Telegraph that ATLAS will today announce a 5-sigma signal and CMS will announce a 4.9-sigma signal of a new particle with a mass which matches many physicists' idea of a Higgs Boson.

An ATLAS researcher said there was "no question" the two detectors are seeing the same thing, adding: "A lot of bets are going to be settled up [today]”.

“After so many years preparing and searching, it’s really amazing to see a clear signal emerge,” a CMS Higgs physicist added.

“This is the sort of thing that makes me cry,” said an ATLAS Higgs physicist. “It's the kind of crying that accompanies winning something or being overwhelmed with happiness. Human thought and ingenuity have continually created and discovered, but this outdoes them all."