The discovery of a new particle. Is it the Higgs? – Daniela Bortoletto
Date: Thu. April 4th, 2013, 4:15 pm-5:15 pmLocation: Rockefeller 301
On July 4th 2012 physicists working at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s highest-energy proton accelerator, at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland announced the discovery of a new particle that is about 135 times heavier than a proton. This particle seems to closely resemble the Higgs boson that was hypothesized over forty years ago to explain the masses of all elementary particles in the universe. In this talk, I will summarize the context for this discovery and present the latest studies to elucidate the properties of this Higgs-like particle. I will conclude by discussing prospects for future measurements of this particle that will be allowed by the energy and luminosity upgrade of the LHC.