Paris: Experiments at the world's biggest atom smasher have yielded tantalising hints that a long-sought sub-atomic particle truly exists, with final proof likely by
late 2012, physicists said today.
"We know everything about the Higgs boson except whether it exists," said Rolf Heuer, director general of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN).
"We can settle this Shakespearean question -- to be or not to be -- by the end of next year," he told journalists at a webcast press conference at CERN headquarters in Geneva.
Researchers at the US Department of Energy's Fermilab, meanwhile, also reported telltale signs of the elusive particle, heating up a longstanding rivalry between the two
high-energy physics laboratories.
CERN and Fermilab have both reduced the range of mass within which the "God particle," as it is known, might be found to a fairly narrow, low-mass band.
"The search for the Higgs boson is entering its most exciting, final stage," Stefan Soldner-Rembold, spokesman for one of Fermilab's two key experiments, said last week in a statement.
Higgs or no Higgs, the stakes are huge either way, and could easily earn a Nobel Prize for the scientists who can take credit for the breakthrough.
The long-postulated particle, first proposed in 1964, is the missing cornerstone of an otherwise well-tested theory, called the Standard Model, which explains how known sub-atomic elements in the universe interact.
Without the 'God particle', however, that whole edifice falls apart because the Standard Model fails to answer one fundamental question: why do most elementary particles
have mass? British theoretical physicist Peter Higgs proposed a mechanism that would "save" the theory -- if the particle named for him truly exists.
"If you find the Boson Higgs, the Standard Model is complete. If you don't find it, then the Model has a serious problem. Both outcomes are discoveries," Heuer said.
Bureau Report
First Published: Tuesday, July 26, 2011, 08:54