Read more: “Instant Expert 35: The Higgs boson“
The start-up of the Large Hadron Collider and the analysis of its first data have been a special time for us particle physicists. We had one of those rare things in research – a question of fundamental importance that we were guaranteed to answer. Either we would discover the standard-model Higgs boson and confirm the theory, or we wouldn’t, thus proving that physics beyond the standard model was required.
With a huge investment of time, money and expertise, it seems we now have our answer: we have a Higgs boson. Knowing its mass, and therefore having precise predictions for what else we should find, will allow us to do great physics with the LHC for another 20 years or so.
But there is now no question of the same vital importance as “where does mass come from?” that is guaranteed to be answered by a single experiment. We must diversify to address the many remaining fundamental questions. Some of these, like the question of the “naturalness” of theories such as the standard model, have been brought into sharper focus by the Higgs discovery.
In the coming years, CERN’s LHCb experiment may give us clues about matter-antimatter asymmetry, but equally these clues may come from studies of neutrinos or muons. The LHC may create dark matter particles, but these might first be seen in underground detectors or astrophysics experiments. A proposed “Higgs factory” in Japan might allow even more precise measurements of the new boson than those at the LHC.
As we diversify, we need to learn how