Higgs in ATLAS, maybe | Hacker News Reader

Higgs in ATLAS, maybe

resonaances.blogspot.com

29 pointsHapper9 comments

I can add this blog to the list of things to read when I want to feel stupid. Definitely cool if it turns out to be true.

I just chalk it up to the fact that I can't possibly know everything. As long as I'm good at programming and/or business, I'm ok with basking in the glory of science without being an active participant. :)

Someone care to translate?

The LHC's ATLAS detector is finding many pairs of photons with a total energy of 115 GeV. This is usually a sign that the collision produced a 115 GeV particle which decayed into a photon pair. There are suspicions that this particle is the long-predicted Higgs boson, because many models estimate the Higgs' mass at 115 GeV.

However, the percentage of collisions which result in this phenomenon isn't in agreement with any of our current models of how the Higgs boson behaves. It's not certain that the new 115 GeV particle is in fact the Higgs; if it is, the Higgs models will need more revising.

This result should be taken with a large chunk of NaCl until the analysis is internally approved by the collaboration and peer reviewed. Although it's been a while since I got my Ph.D. in experimental particle physics, I do remember that di-photon data sets are subject to significant sources of background from a variety of decay processes that produce one photon + a jet of hadrons, 2 jets, a Z boson decaying to electrons etc. Accurately filtering out and estimating the purity of the data sample is crucial, particularly when claiming the discovery of a new particle. My money is on a some combination of a statistical fluctuation, an inaccurately modeled background, or mis-estimated systematic uncertainty that is creating an artificial "bump." I look forward to being proven wrong and hope that ATLAS and CMS discover something so that high-energy physics doesn't go down in the dustbin of history because it's gotten too bloated and expensive to sustain.

Thank you. This stuff fascinates me but it can certainly be overwhelming at times.

I was under the impression the LHC was down until 2012 while some changes were being made.

They are analyzing already-gathered data from 2010 and 2011.

Yes, but the LHC is actually running at this very moment and will be operational through the end of 2012. CERN opted to run at 7 TeV and put off the shutdown required to increase the energy to 14 TeV. In fact, the LHC just set a world record for beam intensity: http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2011/PR...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com