ATLAS and CMS experiments present Higgs search status
In a seminar held at CERN today, the ATLAS and CMS experiments presented the status of their searches for the Standard Model Higgs boson. Their results are based on the analysis of considerably more data than those presented at the summer conferences, sufficient to make significant progress in the search for the Higgs boson, but not enough to make any conclusive statement on the existence or non-existence of the elusive Higgs. The main conclusion is that the Standard Model Higgs boson, if it exists, is most likely to have a mass constrained to the range 116-130 GeV by the ATLAS experiment, and 115-127 GeV by CMS. Tantalising hints have been seen by both experiments in this mass region, but these are not yet strong enough to claim a discovery. Higgs bosons, if they exist, are very short lived and can decay in many different ways. Discovery relies on observing the particles they decay into rather than the Higgs itself. Both ATLAS and CMS have analysed several decay channels, and the experiments see small excesses in the low mass region that has not yet been excluded. Read more
The most coveted prize in particle physics - the Higgs boson - may have been glimpsed, say researchers reporting at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva. The particle is purported to be the means by which everything in the Universe obtains its mass. Scientists say that two experiments at the LHC see hints of the Higgs at the same mass, fuelling huge excitement. Read more
ATLAS and CMS combine summer '11 search limits on the Standard Model Higgs
Perhaps the most anticipated result of the LHC involves the search for the Higgs boson, the only particle predicted by the Standard Model (SM) that has not yet been seen by experiments. The Higgs boson helps explain how elementary particles acquire mass. If the SM Higgs boson exists it will be produced at the LHC and swiftly decay into various known and well-studied particles, with the dominant decay products depending on the actual Higgs mass. ATLAS and CMS search for the SM Higgs boson using a range of decay products: two photons; two tau leptons; two b quarks; two W bosons; and two Z bosons. Analysing all these channels ensures that the search is sensitive to observing the Higgs irrespective of its mass. Read more
Physicists from around the globe launched a major program on Wednesday aimed at converting the LHC "Big Bang" particle collider at CERN near Geneva into a vastly more powerful cosmic research machine by the year 2020. Read more
LHC proton run for 2011 reaches successful conclusion
Geneva, 31 October 2011. After some 180 days of running and four hundred trillion (4x10^14) proton proton collisions, the LHC's 2011 proton run came to an end at 5.15pm yesterday evening. For the second year running, the LHC team has largely surpassed its operational objectives, steadily increasing the rate at which the LHC has delivered data to the experiments. Read more
The LHC is producing million collisions per second in its detectors. But at that time, one collision is "more special" than the others in the LHCb detector: the milestone of 1 inverse femtobarn of luminosity is surpassed. What was considered as "mission impossible" at the beginning of the year is now "mission accomplished". Read more
Scientists at the world's largest physics lab say they have clocked subatomic particles travelling faster than light. If that's true, it would break - if not severely twist - a fundamental pillar of physics. Read more
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. On 10 September 2008, the proton beams were successfully circulated in the main ring of the LHC for the first time, but 9 days later operations were halted due to a serious fault. Read more
The ATLAS Collaboration is pleased to be presenting its latest results at the Lepton Photon 2011 conference in Mumbai 22-27 August 2011. Presentations will focus on the outcome of vigorous and detailed searches for the Higgs boson, supersymmetry , and a variety of other rare and exciting phenomena, in more than two inverse femtobarns of data - equivalent to about 140 million million proton collisions - collected by the ATLAS experiment in 2010 and 2011. Read more