Has anyone seen Higgs' Boson recently

[PAllen]

Ok, enough fun and frivolity, http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2011/dec/18/untitled-p_godparticle121811/

A yoctosecond is 10 to the minus 24th of a second, which is is one septillionth (short scale) of a second. I thought CMS and ATLAS had sampling rates and frequencies that are much much longer than this, so how to capture such a rare and exceedingly fast event ? Since this is GD I only expect a layman's response to steer me in the right direction, unless of course some BSM professional is out there who cares to answer to a higher level of fidelity, so to speak.

Rhody...

The answer is in what you quoted:

"It then decays into less-exotic particles that careen in all directions in an uncontrolled spew. The challenge for scientists is to analyze this decay pattern and look for authentic Higgs debris buried amid the subatomic wreckage."

Software filters the ocean of data for patterns of decay particles of the right type and total energy occurring closely together in time. You don't need to worry about that yoctosecond. If the pattern is relatively rare by chance with 1 nanosecond synchronization, and you can calculate what the random background rate of production is, you have what is called a detection channel.

 

[e^(i Pi)+1=0]

I have it here next to me.

 

[rhody]

You don't need to worry about that yoctosecond. If the pattern is relatively rare by chance with 1 nanosecond synchronization, and you can calculate what the random background rate of production is, you have what is called a detection channel.

PAllen,

A little more fill in the details here would be nice.

Thanks...

Rhody...

 

[PAllen]

PAllen,

A little more fill in the details here would be nice.

Thanks...

Rhody...

You said you didn't want too much detail. Anyway, you are trying to distinguish a possible Higgs decay from all previously known processes. So you look for known processes that could produce the same particles as a Higgs decay (among many others) with, with similar energies. Hopefully, you can filter out most of these by also looking for other things produced that are not produced by Higgs. With lots of work, you finally conclude that if the Higgs didn't exist, all known processes would produce a particular signature of particles and energy with a given time coincidence at some rate (e.g., one of very trillion collisions). An excess over the expected rate is then a sign of a possible Higgs (e.g. 3 out of two trillion collisions). The larger the excess, and the more expected signatures possessing a predicted excess, the higher the confidence you have detected a Higgs.

 

[epenguin]

Understand a cluster of particles of which you'd see a lot around anyway but you wouldn't see all turning up together at the very same time often unless they came from Higgs.

Could you tell us what exactly what stuff they are looking to see?

 

[PAllen]

Understand a cluster of particles of which you'd see a lot around anyway but you wouldn't see all turning up together at the very same time often unless they came from Higgs.

Could you tell us what exactly what stuff they are looking to see?

I think the main (but not only) decay channels being sought are:

Higgs -> Z + anti Z -> 4 muons (2 must be anti)
Higgs -> Z + anti Z -> 4 electrons (2 must be anti)
Higgs -> 2 gamma photons
Higgs -> W + anti W -> e+e- + 2 neutrino
Higgs -> W + anti W -> muon + antimuion+ 2 neutrinos

In each case, both energy and temporal coincidence filters apply to the sought end products. Despite this, there are many processes other than the Higgs which will produce each result (the background that must be statistically exceeded).

W and Z are the two different types of vector bosons that mediate weak interactions.

If you still have more questions, please ask at the high energy physics forum. This is not not my primary knowledge area.

Here is a link for terms used to describe the search process:

http://press.web.cern.ch/press/background/B09-Important_Higgs_terms_en.html

 

[rhody]

I think the main (but not only) decay channels being sought are:

Higgs -> Z + anti Z -> 4 muons (2 must be anti)
Higgs -> Z + anti Z -> 4 electrons (2 must be anti)
Higgs -> 2 gamma photons
Higgs -> W + anti W -> e+e- + 2 neutrino
Higgs -> W + anti W -> muon + antimuion+ 2 neutrinos

In each case, both energy and temporal coincidence filters apply to the sought end products. Despite this, there are many processes other than the Higgs which will produce each result (the background that must be statistically exceeded).

W and Z are the two different types of vector bosons that mediate weak interactions.

If you still have more questions, please ask at the high energy physics forum. This is not not my primary knowledge area.

Here is a link for terms used to describe the search process:

http://press.web.cern.ch/press/background/B09-Important_Higgs_terms_en.html

Thanks for your increasing level of detail response. I appreciate it.

Rhody...

 

[RonL]

I think the main (but not only) decay channels being sought are:

Higgs -> Z + anti Z -> 4 muons (2 must be anti)
Higgs -> Z + anti Z -> 4 electrons (2 must be anti)
Higgs -> 2 gamma photons
Higgs -> W + anti W -> e+e- + 2 neutrino
Higgs -> W + anti W -> muon + antimuion+ 2 neutrinos

Bought two set of everything on the list, off e-bay, hope they arrive before Xmas.

 

[turbo]

My dog steals stuff and hides it. He might have the Higgs stashed around here, but he is pretty cagey about it. I have recovered some socks, but no Higgs, so far.

 

[rethipher]

And 20 minutes later my search for some real discussion turned up nil. Darn, no higgs either. I'm going to go post on facebook and look some more.

 

[Evo]

New posts have been moved to the new thread. All new CERN posts about tomorrow's announcent need to go there.

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=618073