"God Particle" redirects here. For other uses, see The God Particle (disambiguation).
Higgs boson
Candidate Higgs boson events from collisions between protons in the LHC. The top event in the CMS experiment shows a decay into two photons (dashed yellow lines and green towers). The lower event in the ATLAS experiment shows a decay into four muons (red tracks).[a]
Composition
Elementary particle
Statistics
Bosonic
Symbol
H0
Theorised
R. Brout, F. Englert, P. Higgs, G. S. Guralnik, C. R. Hagen, and T. W. B. Kibble (1964)
Discovered
Large Hadron Collider (2011–2013)
Mass
125.11 ± 0.11 GeV/c2[1]
Mean lifetime
1.56×10−22 s[b]
(predicted) 1.2 ~ 4.6 × 10−22 s (tentatively measured at 3.2 sigma (1 in 1000) significance)[3][4]
Decays into
Bottom–antibottom pair (observed)[5][6]
Two W bosons (observed)
Two gluons (predicted)
Tau–antitau pair (observed)
Two Z bosons (observed)
Two photons (observed)
Two leptons and a photon (Dalitz decay via virtual photon) (tentatively observed at sigma 3.2 (1 in 1000) significance) [4]
Muon–antimuon pair (predicted)
Various other decays (predicted)
Electric charge
0 e
Colour charge
0
Spin
0 ħ[7][8]
Weak isospin
−1/2
Weak hypercharge
+1
Parity
+1[7][8]
The Higgs boson, sometimes called the Higgs particle,[9][10] is an elementary particle in the Standard Model of particle physics produced by the quantum excitation of the Higgs field,[11][12] one of the fields in particle physics theory.[12] In the Standard Model, the Higgs particle is a massive scalar boson with zero spin, even (positive) parity, no electric charge, and no colour charge that couples to (interacts with) mass.[13] It is also very unstable, decaying into other particles almost immediately upon generation.
The Higgs field is a scalar field with two neutral and two electrically charged components that form a complex doublet of the weak isospin SU(2) symmetry. Its "Sombrero potential" leads it to take a nonzero value everywhere (including otherwise empty space), which breaks the weak isospin symmetry of the electroweak interaction and, via the Higgs mechanism, gives a rest mass to all massive elementary particles of the Standard Model, including the Higgs boson itself.
Both the field and the boson are named after physicist Peter Higgs, who in 1964, along with five other scientists in three teams, proposed the Higgs mechanism, a way for some particles to acquire mass. (All fundamental particles known at the time[c] should be massless at very high energies, but fully explaining how some particles gain mass at lower energies had been extremely difficult.) If these ideas were correct, a particle known as a scalar boson should also exist (with certain properties). This particle was called the Higgs boson and could be used to test whether the Higgs field was the correct explanation.
After a 40-year search, a subatomic particle with the expected properties was discovered in 2012 by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland. The new particle was subsequently confirmed to match the expected properties of a Higgs boson. Physicists from two of the three teams, Peter Higgs and François Englert, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2013 for their theoretical predictions. Although Higgs's name has come to be associated with this theory, several researchers between about 1960 and 1972 independently developed different parts of it.
In the mainstream media, the Higgs boson is sometimes called the "God particle" after the 1993 book The God Particle by Nobel Laureate Leon Lederman,[14] although the nickname has been criticised by many physicists.[15][16]
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).
^"ATLAS sets record precision on Higgs boson's mass". 21 July 2023. Archived from the original on 22 July 2023. Retrieved 22 July 2023.
^"Life of the Higgs boson" (Press release). CMS Collaboration. Archived from the original on 2 December 2021. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
^ ab"ATLAS finds evidence of a rare Higgs boson decay" (Press release). CERN. 8 February 2021. Archived from the original on 19 January 2022. Retrieved 21 January 2022.
^ATLAS collaboration (2018). "Observation of H→bb decays and VH production with the ATLAS detector". Physics Letters B. 786: 59–86. arXiv:1808.08238. doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2018.09.013. S2CID 53658301.
^ abCite error: The named reference CERN March 2013 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ abCMS Collaboration (2017). "Constraints on anomalous Higgs boson couplings using production and decay information in the four-lepton final state". Physics Letters B. 775 (2017): 1–24. arXiv:1707.00541. Bibcode:2017PhLB..775....1S. doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2017.10.021. S2CID 3221363.
^Goulette, Marc (15 August 2012). "What should we know about the Higgs particle?" (blog). Atlas Experiment / CERN. Archived from the original on 13 January 2022. Retrieved 21 January 2022.
^"Getting to know the Higgs particle: New discoveries!" (Press release). Institute of Physics. Archived from the original on 13 January 2022. Retrieved 21 January 2022.
^
Onyisi, P. (23 October 2012). "Higgs boson FAQ". University of Texas ATLAS group. Archived from the original on 12 October 2013. Retrieved 8 January 2013.
^ ab
Strassler, M. (12 October 2012). "The Higgs FAQ 2.0". ProfMattStrassler.com. Archived from the original on 12 October 2013. Retrieved 8 January 2013. [Q] Why do particle physicists care so much about the Higgs particle? [A] Well, actually, they don't. What they really care about is the Higgs field, because it is so important. [emphasis in original]
^Cite error: The named reference when higgs was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Lederman, L.M. (1993). The God Particle. Bantam Doubleday Dell. ISBN 0-385-31211-3.
^
Sample, Ian (29 May 2009). "Anything but the God particle". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 25 July 2018. Retrieved 24 June 2009.
^
Evans, R. (14 December 2011). "The Higgs boson: Why scientists hate that you call it the 'God particle'". National Post. Archived from the original on 23 February 2015. Retrieved 3 November 2013.
excitation of the Higgs field, one of the fields in particle physics theory. In the Standard Model, the Higgs particle is a massive scalar boson with zero spin...
Certain elementary bosons (e.g. gluons) act as force carriers, which give rise to forces between other particles, while one (the Higgsboson) contributes to...
the Higgs mechanism is essential to explain the generation mechanism of the property "mass" for gauge bosons. Without the Higgs mechanism, all bosons (one...
general and of the W and Z bosons in particular. This so-called Higgs mechanism, which was proposed by several physicists besides Higgs at about the same time...
the Higgsboson was a 40-year effort by physicists to prove the existence or non-existence of the Higgsboson, first theorised in the 1960s. The Higgs boson...
the Standard Model, the W and Z bosons gain mass via the Higgs mechanism. In the Higgs mechanism, the four gauge bosons (of SU(2)×U(1) symmetry) of the...
inflation itself may be the consequence of the Higgs field trapped in a false vacuum state with Higgs self-coupling λ and its βλ function very close to...
The W and Z particles interact with the Higgsboson as shown in the Feynman diagram. The name vector boson arises from quantum field theory. The component...
the Higgsboson was announced to have been observed at CERN's Large Hadron Collider. Peter Higgs who first posited the existence of the Higgsboson was...
spin while bosons have integer spin. All the particles of the Standard Model have been experimentally observed, including the Higgsboson in 2012. Many...
fundamental scalar boson in the Standard Model of particle physics is the Higgsboson, the existence of which was confirmed on 14 March 2013 at the Large Hadron...
particle, the Higgsboson, which has since been found at the Large Hadron Collider. Of the four components of a Goldstone boson created by the Higgs field, three...
of the Higgs field whose interactions are carried by four massless gauge bosons – each similar to the photon – forming a complex scalar Higgs field doublet...
part of the international effort in the discovery of a boson consistent with the Higgsboson. Wu was born in the early 1940s during the Japanese occupation...
theory: Introduction to gauge theory Generation Higgs mechanism: Higgsboson, Alternatives to the Standard Higgs Model Lagrangian Open questions: CP violation...
short-range weak interaction, and the Higgsboson. In the Higgs mechanism, the Higgs field manifests Higgsbosons that interact with some quantum particles...
exchanging gauge bosons (gluons, W and Z bosons, and photons, respectively). The Standard Model also predicts a particle known as the Higgsboson. In July 2012...
observed elementary particles. It derives its mass from its coupling to the HiggsBoson. This coupling yt{\displaystyle y_{t}} is very close to unity; in the...
beam, about four times the previous world record. The discovery of the Higgsboson at the LHC was announced in 2012. Between 2013 and 2015, the LHC was...
the Standard Model also predicted the existence of a type of boson known as the Higgsboson. On 4 July 2012, physicists with the Large Hadron Collider at...
which do not. The elementary bosons comprise the gauge bosons (photon, W and Z, gluons) with spin 1, while the Higgsboson is the only elementary particle...
particle physics, composite Higgs models (CHM) are speculative extensions of the Standard Model (SM) where the Higgsboson is a bound state of new strong...
the fundamental set of particles – the leptons, quarks, gauge bosons and the Higgsboson. The Standard Model is renormalizable and mathematically self-consistent...
the Standard Model, there are also bosons, including the photons and gluons; W+, W−, and Z bosons; and the Higgsboson; and an open space left for the graviton...
observation of the Higgsboson. On 4 July 2012 Gianotti announced the discovery of the particle. Until the observation, the Higgsboson was a purely theoretical...
combine to produce only a single elementary boson, such as a photon ( γ ), gluon ( g ), Z , or a Higgsboson ( H0 ). If the total energy in the center-of-momentum...
electroweak symmetry SU(2) × U(1)Y to U(1)em, effected by the Higgs mechanism (see also Higgsboson), an elaborate quantum-field-theoretic phenomenon that "spontaneously"...