Higgs!

[Jonathan Thornburg [remove -animal to reply]]

Two CERN experiments (ATLAS and CMS) have announced the clear detection
of (decays of) the Higgs boson, with a mass around 125 GeV. Combining
both experiments and various channels, the overall significance is around
5.1 sigma.

The web is awash in stories about this; some of my favorites are:
http://profmattstrassler.com/2012/07/04/the-day-of-the-higgs/
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2012/07/03/live-blogging-the-higgs-seminar/
http://www.nature.com/news/physicists-declare-victory-in-higgs-hunt-1.10940

[Higgs trivia facts:
* A Higgs has about the same mass as an Iodine atom
* A Higgs has about 1.6 times the mass of a Benzene molecule.]

I wonder what the timescale will be for an experimental measurement
of whether the Higgs is spin-0 as expected?

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg [remove -animal to reply]" <jth...@astro.indiana-zebra.edu>
Dept of Astronomy & IUCSS, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

[Eric Gisse]

On Jul 4, 9:45 am, "Jonathan Thornburg [remove -animal to reply]"

<jth...@astro.indiana-zebra.edu> wrote:
> Two CERN experiments (ATLAS and CMS) have announced the clear detection
> of (decays of) the Higgs boson, with a mass around 125 GeV. Combining
> both experiments and various channels, the overall significance is around
> 5.1 sigma.
>
> The web is awash in stories about this; some of my favorites are:
> http://profmattstrassler.com/2012/07/04/the-day-of-the-higgs/

> http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2012/07/03/live-blog...
> http://www.nature.com/news/physicists-declare-victory-in-higgs-hunt-1...

>
> [Higgs trivia facts:
> * A Higgs has about the same mass as an Iodine atom
> * A Higgs has about 1.6 times the mass of a Benzene molecule.]
>
> I wonder what the timescale will be for an experimental measurement
> of whether the Higgs is spin-0 as expected?
>
> --
> -- "Jonathan Thornburg [remove -animal to reply]" <jth...@astro.indiana-zebra.edu>
> Dept of Astronomy & IUCSS, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA
> "Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
> powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
> -- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

Let's not forget that Peter Higgs lived to see his life's work to
completion. How many folks can say that?

Overall I'm jazzed that we found it, but there's some other
interesting nuggets. Sure most of the decay channels matched up but
there were some that were missing, overly strong, or overly weak,
which says at the very least there's more work to do. My personal
interpretation is 'new physics' but we'll see.

I wonder what the people who claimed the Higgs will never be found
have to say now :)

[Phillip Helbig---undress to reply]

In article <a5j2tn...@mid.individual.net>, "Jonathan Thornburg

[remove -animal to reply]" <jth...@astro.indiana-zebra.edu> writes:

> I wonder what the timescale will be for an experimental measurement
> of whether the Higgs is spin-0 as expected?

I just followed this while doing other things, but it was stated that
the particle is a boson. I'm not sure what this implies about the
timescale for measuring the spin itself.

[Johan Wevers]

On 04-07-2012 19:57, Phillip Helbig---undress to reply wrote:

> I just followed this while doing other things, but it was stated that
> the particle is a boson. I'm not sure what this implies about the
> timescale for measuring the spin itself.

I don't know, but apparently they measured the decay into 2 photons (and
maybe 2 Z particles? I didn't understand from the news I read if they
actually measured that), so it has to have either spin-0 or spin-2.

Spin 2 seems less likely IMO, unless we have it all wrong and are
measuring some kind of massive graviton, but more work needs to be done
to rule it out.

--
ir. J.C.A. Wevers
PGP/GPG public keys at http://www.xs4all.nl/~johanw/pgpkeys.html

[Anon E. Mouse]

On Jul 4, 1:56pm, Eric Gisse <jowr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jul 4, 9:45 am, "Jonathan Thornburg [remove -animal to reply]"

> I wonder what the people who claimed the Higgs will never be found
> have to say now :)

I am a person who thought it unlikely that the Higgs boson would be
demonstrated as it seems it now has been so demonstrated. At that time
I was not a serious student of sub-atomic physics. Recently, I do
study this topic with some strong interest.

In retrospect, my original doubts came from two sources. The first was
that I could not explain at that time any physically plausible reason
for atoms to appear to behave as they do. The standard model
describes, and to an extent predicts how they appear to be, but the
model, does not seem to me to explain these apparent intrinsic
qualities in a manner consistent with first principles, or the rest of
physics.

The second reason for my skepticism about the existence of the Higgs
Boson was, the physical characteristics were quite extra-ordinary. For
example, the ATLAS confirmed mass of the Higgs is about 126.5 GeV,
very nearly the 125 GeV predicted.

The British comedy Dr. Who featured a time traveling space craft much
much larger inside, than outside. In terms of mass, the Higgs appears
to an non-expert to have the same sort of implausible characteristic.
The standard model predicts that there be a sub-atomic particle with
the mass of and iodine atom nestled within the nucleus of (? most,
all, which?) atomic nucleus.

As a result of my recent studies, I much better understand some of the
basics of QED and the standard model, as well as a little about
collider and detector functions.

As a result of this study, I can and do readily accept the validity
and significance of this important new finding reported by CERN.

Today, I can even explain, in a physically sensible manner how an
atomic nucleus can, and apparently now provably does contain more mass
than it appears it possibly could.

Sadly, I can not publish any of this thinking in this forum. Quoting
from my most recent notice of rejection;

Re: A Hidden Quantities Hypothesis

> I propose the hypothesis that a small portion of the charge-space of the =
electron is traveling above 2.998E8 m/s, but due to > the limitation of l=
ight speed this extra spin angular momentum and a portion of the resultant =
magnetic dipole moment of the
> electron is unobservable in the stationary laboratory frame of reference.

{Moderators Note: This would lead to an infinite mass. You can't just
use SR in some contexts and ignor it in others.]

Clearly, I do not agree with the moderators conclusion. An infinite
series does not necessarily, or even typically, sum to infinity,
instead it more and more closely approaches some specific limiting
value.

There are many many instances in which the infinity related issues
with GRT hove been successfully resolved, such as the probably
existence of mass and and other energy forms beyond the Schartzshild
radius.

I believe that the very very modest excess mass of the electron, and
the extremely surprising, almost inexplicable mass of the Higgs are
related but that this can be successfully explained using GRT in
combination with the standard model.

I feel that without some insight of the sort I presently endorse,
reasonable individuals will continue to treat particle physics with
the sort of skepticism I used to exhibit toward this subject.

Because I am interested in the possibly significant details ot the
ATLAS and CMS experiments I would appreciate it if any reader would
publish a link to the scholarly articles that must under gird this
most interesting public announcement.

[Richard D. Saam]

On 7/4/12 9:45 AM, Jonathan Thornburg [remove -animal to reply] wrote:
> Two CERN experiments (ATLAS and CMS) have announced the clear detection
> of (decays of) the Higgs boson, with a mass around 125 GeV. Combining
> both experiments and various channels, the overall significance is around
> 5.1 sigma.
>

Is there a physical correlation between the CERN 126.5 GeV
and the astrophysical observed Fermi ~130 GeV
as reported:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1206.2241v1
I think so and intersecting at Big Bang Nucleosynthesis.

Richard D. Saam

[b...@birdband.net]

back in the days of the weak heavy boson discovery, the decay sequence
was clear unifying EM with the weak force but things are not quite as
intuitive this time linking up with the strong force. the sequence of
interactions don't match exactly what was predicted but with all the
data collected, the path to it is well on the way.

Carlo Rubbia said that a future approach could be a muon collider (point
particles)

my questions are:

can the same LHC be used to axelerate muons? (i think i know why not but
not clearly) can there be cheaper procedures limiting dimensions like
using beams and tight targets.

regards
r.y

[Tom Roberts]

On 7/8/12 7/8/12 3:51 PM, b...@birdband.net wrote:
> can the same LHC be used to axelerate muons?

No. Not even close. The LHC takes far too long to accelerate to its collision
energy, and all muons would have decayed.


Tom Roberts

[Christian Schroeder]

[[Mod. note -- I have rewrapped overly-long lines. -- jt]]

Am Mittwoch, 4. Juli 2012 22:28:55 UTC+2 schrieb Johan Wevers:
> I don't know, but apparently they measured the decay into 2 photons (and
> maybe 2 Z particles? I didn't understand from the news I read if they
> actually measured that), so it has to have either spin-0 or spin-2.

Yes, exactly, they see a resonance in the H->gamma gamma and H->ZZ
channel. And these are the only two channels yet, where there's a
significant excess seen by ATLAS and CMS.

> Spin 2 seems less likely IMO, unless we have it all wrong and are
> measuring some kind of massive graviton, but more work needs to be done
> to rule it out.

In principle it can be tested by looking at H->b bbar and H->tau
tau, but unfortunately the experiments haven't reached the necessary
sensitivity there. (The discovery potential in these channels is
about 2 and 1 sigma respective with the current luminosity. So, we
would need to wait at least until the end of the year before we
expect to see something. And even more unfortunate there's a downward
fluctuation for the H->tau tau in the CMS data, so it could take
even longer ...)

[b...@birdband.net]

yeah, the design was to axelerate heavy ions. a muon collider can offer
cleaner channels simplifying data analysis. the other challenge they say
is the cooling process.

r.y

[Martin Hardcastle]

In article <ZMadnaqofp6EzmvS...@giganews.com>,

Richard D. Saam <rds...@att.net> wrote:
>Is there a physical correlation between the CERN 126.5 GeV
>and the astrophysical observed Fermi ~130 GeV
>as reported:
>http://arxiv.org/abs/1206.2241v1

The author of the original study claiming a detection was asked this
at a meeting I'm at at the moment, and his answer was basically 'no,
barring some physics we don't know'. If this line is real, the
expectation is that it would be from WIMP annihilation. Some
non-standard-model physics would be required to tie the masses of
WIMPs precisely to the Higgs mass... assuming that we really are
seeing the Higgs.

Martin
--
Martin Hardcastle
School of Physics, Astronomy and Mathematics, University of Hertfordshire, UK