The Discovery of the Higgs Boson, and The Origin of Mass
Professor Robert Kroeger, University of Mississippi
Tuesday, March 12, at 3:45 p.m. in SB110.
PLEASE NOTE: Refreshments will be served starting at 3:30 p.m. in SB110, NOT the usual location
The Standard Model of High Energy Particle physics was proposed in the late sixties, and has been the prevailing theoretical model since the discovery of the charm quark in 1974. The model has provided a detailed and unified explanation for all the data aqcuired with particle accelerators to date. All of the elementary particles predicted by the theory were proved to exist by the year 2000, with the exception of the theory's most enigmatic particle the Higgs Boson. The Higgs is a logical necessity of the model because it provides a means to give the other particles their masses.
The discovery of the Higgs in July 2012 rounds out four decades of searching. The talk will describe the CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider and how it was able to make the discovery of the Higgs along with its sister experiment Atlas. The reasons that the Higgs eluded discovery for so long will be explored along with some perspective on why the Higgs discovery is important.
