Searching for LHC News - Has Higgs Been Found?

Click For Summary

Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the current status and expectations regarding the search for the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Participants explore various perspectives on whether the Higgs has been discovered, the implications of its potential absence, and the energy requirements necessary for its detection. The conversation includes theoretical considerations, experimental results, and the timeline of the LHC's operations.

Discussion Character

  • Debate/contested
  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Conceptual clarification

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants express concern over the lack of news from the LHC, questioning whether it is too early to expect discoveries.
  • Others argue that most scientists believe the Higgs boson will not be found, citing opinions from notable physicists like Susskind and Hawking regarding energy requirements.
  • There are claims that the LHC was specifically designed to find the Higgs, and if it is not discovered, it raises questions about its relevance in future research.
  • Some participants discuss the implications of electroweak symmetry breaking and the necessity of a mechanism to account for it within the LHC's reach.
  • Questions are raised about the status of WW scattering results and whether they provide insights into the Higgs mass.
  • One participant mentions that the LHC has only collected a small fraction of its design luminosity, suggesting it is premature to expect significant results.
  • There are conflicting views on whether the LHC has reached its design energy of 14 TeV, with some asserting that it is a matter of speculation.
  • Participants discuss the implications of various scenarios regarding the Higgs, including the possibility of discovering a non-standard model Higgs or other phenomena.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

The discussion features multiple competing views regarding the likelihood of discovering the Higgs boson and the implications of its absence. There is no consensus on the interpretations of current results or the future of the LHC's findings.

Contextual Notes

Participants note limitations in the current understanding of results related to WW scattering and the Higgs mass, as well as the need for more data to draw definitive conclusions. The discussion reflects ongoing uncertainties in theoretical predictions and experimental outcomes.

Tanelorn
Messages
906
Reaction score
15
Is there any LHC News

Well the LHC has been running at 7TeV for 6 months now and everything seems very quite, is it still too early to hear of discoveries?

I have searched the LHC site and the web but there nothing out there. I presume that Higgs has not been found?
 
Last edited:
Physics news on Phys.org
Most scientists agree the Higgs won't be found. Even the LHC according to Susskind does not have the energy requirements to find it.
 
QuantumClue said:
Most scientists agree the Higgs won't be found.
I wish I personally knew you to have a bet about that. The LHC was designed to find the Higgs. If the Higgs has not been found by the end of the LHC era, it will be very hard to believe it could even be useful elsewhere. Whether there is only one Higgs, or whether the Higgs is fundamental, are different questions. But one thing is for certain (unless quantum mechanics, that is unitarity, fails) : within the LHC reach, electroweak symmetry breaks and something must break it.

Otherwise, there is already quite a bit coming out of LHC. They even have conferences about it. Some is unexpected too. I do not have time to make a decent post about that.
 
humanino said:
I wish I personally knew you to have a bet about that. The LHC was designed to find the Higgs. If the Higgs has not been found by the end of the LHC era, it will be very hard to believe it could even be useful elsewhere. Whether there is only one Higgs, or whether the Higgs is fundamental, are different questions. But one thing is for certain (unless quantum mechanics, that is unitarity, fails) : within the LHC reach, electroweak symmetry breaks and something must break it.

Otherwise, there is already quite a bit coming out of LHC. They even have conferences about it. Some is unexpected too. I do not have time to make a decent post about that.

Susskind does not believe the energy requirements are correct for the Higgs at the LHC... Stephen Hawking has also commented he does not believe that a higgs will be found. And when Hawking talks, it is from what I believe, the general scientific community listens...
 
humanino said:
But one thing is for certain (unless quantum mechanics, that is unitarity, fails) : within the LHC reach, electroweak symmetry breaks and something must break it.
Regarding that, are there any released results on WW scattering? Do they see it "bending" to preserve unitarity and does this provide more precise info on where the Higgs mass should be?

When I try searching for LHC and WW scattering, all that seems to come up is papers and talks about expectations before the LHC even started running. So I can't tell if there is no experimental data on this yet, or if I'm just doing a horrible job at searching.
 
Afaik there are well-known restrictions for the SM Higgs mass range and the LHC covers the allowed region. So if the Higgs is a SM Higgs it will be found by the LHC; if no Higgs is found then it's either a non-SM Higgs or something totally different, but at least 'something'.
 
JustinLevy said:
Regarding that, are there any released results on WW scattering? Do they see it "bending" to preserve unitarity and does this provide more precise info on where the Higgs mass should be?
I have not found preliminary results about that either.
 
First, the LHC has only collected about 0.05% of its design luminosity, and that at half of the design energy. It's a little early to be wondering why the physics program isn't finished and all the papers written.

As far as "most scientists agree the Higgs won't be found", that's just nonsense. If that were the case, they wouldn't have built the LHC.
 
I did find this link on the LHC very initial results:

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/indepth/44805


Was a bit harsh on the more exotic theories.


Some one produced a paper that says some type of micro Black Holes can be produced at 3.5TeV:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1012.3375

Do you think they would tell us if they had a problem?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • #10
I guess something like this would be hard to miss:

LHC__Aftermath_by_darth_biomech.jpg
 
  • #11
Tanelorn said:
I guess something like this would be hard to miss
Nice image. I enjoy science-fiction too. Usually, it is about the future however. I guess this image qualifies as history-fiction.
 
  • #12
14 tev and no cupcake or Higgs bozo seen. Makes you think electro-weak symmetry splitting is symmetrical bs more than real science.
 
  • #13
If you're going to express an opinion, it helps for it to be an informed one. The LHC hasn't run at 14 TeV at all.
 
  • #14
There is not so much exciting news from the LHC yet for a simple reason, it has not been operating long enough yet. The discovery of new particles, such as the Higgs boson, is based on statistics, and in order to get enough statistics a longer time of run and a higher luminosity is needed. This is the case, to a large degree because of the excistance of background, i.e. events that mimic the production and decay of a Higgs but which are not. Therefore, in order to "find the higgs" enough statistics is needed to give the signal a chance to overcome the background.
So far, the LHC has REdiscovered the particles of the standard model such as the W and Z bosons but for a potential higgs we will have to wait a bit longer.

So let's not be impatient, after all, the machine is finally running and in many ways operating better than expected.

Cheers
 
  • #15
The 14 TEV is the hypothetical potential and whether or not they have reached it is speculation. The theory is still weak and based upon a mathematician's guess ...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • #16
rkirby7 said:
The 14 TEV is the hypothetical potential and whether or not they have reached it is speculation.
No, this is obviously wrong. They know the energy in the machine. There is no speculation when we say that it is a fact they have not reached it yet. Logically, it is speculation that they WILL reach 14 TeV (by the way, it's TeV, not TEV). However, there is no serious doubt that they will indeed reach 14 TeV.

rkirby7 said:
The theory is still weak and based upon a mathematician's guess...
I think you may want to learn a little bit before challenging senior members of this board. The electroweak model predicts a failure of unitarity within the LHC reach. There is no logical escape to the statement that LHC will discover something important there. I list the broad logical possibilities below for your consideration
(1) electroweak symmetry restoration does not occur within the LHC reach, and vector boson scattering violates unitarity. This is both the biggest news and by far the least likely possibility. Nobody believes this will happen. Elementary quantum mechanics would be falsified.
(2) the symmetry restoration does occur
(2.1) it is achieved through a simple, single Higgs boson as in the old and first version of the standard model of particle physics. LHC discovers the Higgs, but we have no idea what is next. This is the worse possible scenario for particle physics. If you have paid attention, the Higgs is discovered in this scenario
(2.2) there is more than just the simple Higgs. In this case, we say that the Higgs mechanism is achieved by something else or something more that just the Higgs boson. In my understanding, this very broad scenario is the most likely. Depending exactly what we find, different things should happen next.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • #17
QuantumClue said:
Susskind does not believe the energy requirements are correct for the Higgs at the LHC... Stephen Hawking has also commented he does not believe that a higgs will be found. And when Hawking talks, it is from what I believe, the general scientific community listens...

When Hawking talks a lot of researcher immediately look if any release dates for one of his books is coming closer. Hawking is not even close to being one of the most influential physicists of the 20th century. Not even of the second half of that century. Recent years I've only read about him when he made extraordinary claims and that was when he was releasing a series of documentaries or books...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • #18
humanino said:
(2.1) it is achieved through a simple, single Higgs boson as in the old and first version of the standard model of particle physics. LHC discovers the Higgs, but we have no idea what is next. This is the worse possible scenario for particle physics. If you have paid attention, the Higgs is discovered in this scenario

I would split this into two cases:

(2.1a) LHC discovers the Higgs and nothing else new. This is the worst possible scenario for particle physics.
(2.1b) LHC discovers the Higgs and also discovers other new physics unrelated to the mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking. This is not a terribly problematic scenario for particle physics.
 
  • #19
Parlyne said:
I would split this into two cases:

(2.1a) LHC discovers the Higgs and nothing else new. This is the worst possible scenario for particle physics.
(2.1b) LHC discovers the Higgs and also discovers other new physics unrelated to the mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking. This is not a terribly problematic scenario for particle physics.

What is most important is to get some hint, some inkling of an idea about what resolves the hierarchy problem.

It is not a pretty universe if the hierarchy problem gets promoted to the hierarchy fact and will say some rather unpleasant thing about our ability to predict future physics!
 
  • #20
tom.stoer said:
Afaik there are well-known restrictions for the SM Higgs mass range and the LHC covers the allowed region. So if the Higgs is a SM Higgs it will be found by the LHC; if no Higgs is found then it's either a non-SM Higgs or something totally different, but at least 'something'.

They have now posted new limits
Search for supersymmetry using final states with one lepton, jets, and missing transverse m0mentum with the ATLAS detector in sqrt{s} = 7 TeV pp
Search for Supersymmetry in pp Collisions at 7 TeV in Events with Jets and Missing Transverse Energy
 

Similar threads

Undergrad How Much Better Will Top and Higgs Mass Measurements Get?
  • · Replies 2 ·
Replies
2
Views
2K
Undergrad New Constraints On The Higgs Boson Width
  • · Replies 11 ·
Replies
11
Views
4K
Undergrad LHC Restarts in 2022 - Live Updates
  • · Replies 20 ·
Replies
20
Views
4K
Graduate One quick question about Higgs boson and supersymmetry
  • · Replies 9 ·
Replies
9
Views
4K
Undergrad How powerful would a collider have to be to observe a sphaleron?
  • · Replies 2 ·
Replies
2
Views
3K
Graduate LHC about to restart - some frequently asked questions
  • · Replies 69 ·
3
Replies
69
Views
15K
Graduate New results indicate that new particle is a Higgs boson
  • · Replies 11 ·
Replies
11
Views
4K
Graduate LHC finds new Chi-b (3P) particle
  • · Replies 13 ·
Replies
13
Views
8K
Graduate Is a Small Space Hadron Collider More Efficient than a Large One?
  • · Replies 26 ·
Replies
26
Views
4K
Undergrad New Naming Rules for Exotic Hadrons at the LHC: LHCb Collaboration Paper (2022)
  • · Replies 7 ·
Replies
7
Views
2K