Rumors of the Higgs discovery

[shunyadragon]

Success, the Higgs has been confirmed!!!

[Kristian Joense]

YAY, I guess.

[phank]

YAY, I guess.

My sentiments exactly. OK, this reinforces the Standard Model, but now what? Is there any way to pin these things down and experiment to see how they work? Or are we limited to noticing that there is indeed a boson which falls within the fairly narrow energy range where the Higgs would have to live?

[lao tzu]

483271_2934375817857_1938017221_n.jpg

[little_monkey]

Now that the Higgs boson has been discovered, what next?

There are two anomalies that are in need of an explanation: a) In the diphoton decay channel, the Higgs boson produces an excess of photons, about one-and-a-half times the rate predicted by the standard model; b) a Higgs boson of about 125 GeV should decay into tau particles about six per cent of the time, but it seems to be doing it a lot less than that. Also, its spin is to be determined. The Higgs is a scalar, and therefore, its spin should be zero.

The LHC will hibernate for an upgrade, and then is expected to run smoothly, more than doubling the total amount of data collected. That could allow the tau, diphoton and spin questions to be settled within a year.

[robrecht]

Any scientific theories or hypotheses on the superabundance of photons?

[OmniSkeptical]

I believe they exist as energy, not matter.

[robrecht]

I believe they exist as energy, not matter.

I believe they exist as energy, not matter.

Is this meant to explain the first anomaly mentioned by little_monkey, namely, "that the Higgs boson produces an excess of photons, about one-and-a-half times the rate predicted by the standard model"? That's what I was asking about.

[OmniSkeptical]

Is this meant to explain the first anomaly mentioned by little_monkey, namely, "that the Higgs boson produces an excess of photons, about one-and-a-half times the rate predicted by the standard model"? That's what I was asking about.

This is likely true in the energy sense of things. I have hard time believing in infinite photon packets. What is the size of this massless matter? I may be suprised if there is one.

[phank]

Here is an interesting excerpt from a column in the most recent Scientific American (September 2012 issue):

Experimenters still need to verify that the new particle is a spin-0 Higgs boson. Next, theyt must test how the Higgs interacts with other particles to high precision. At this writing, its couplings do not quite match predictions, which could be just a statistical fluctuation or a sign of some deeper effect. Meanwhile experimenters have to keep taking data to see whether more than one Higgs boson exists.

These are important tests because theorists have constructed many hypothetical models that put the Standard Model in a broader framework, and many of these predict multiple bosons or diviations from the usual couplings. The models include extra fermions, extra bosons and even extra dimensions of space. The most studied broader framework is supersymmetry, which hypothesizes that each known fermion has an undiscovered partner boson and that each known boson has an undiscovered partner fermion. If supersymmetry is correct, ther is not one Higgs boson but at least five.

[magellan004]

HIGS - Hoodlums In Government. (coined by Wilhelm Reich)
They have been around for a long time.

Magellan

[pancreasman]

HIGS - Hoodlums In Government. (coined by Wilhelm Reich)
They have been around for a long time.

Magellan

Another valuable contribution from our master of modern physics.

Main rule: All science is bad.

[little_monkey]

HIGS - Hoodlums In Government. (coined by Wilhelm Reich)
They have been around for a long time.

Magellan

Another valuable contribution from our master of modern physics.

Main rule: All science is bad.

Will you get off my thread instead of spewing your stupidities. Go trolling somewhere else.

[pancreasman]

Will you get off my thread instead of spewing your stupidities. Go trolling somewhere else.

Apologies.