Has the Higgs Boson Particle Field Been Hiding in Plain Sight?

sciencehabit writes with a link to the ScienceNow site, noting an article saying the Higgs boson may already have been found in previous observations of the known universe. A theorist at Michigan state is arguing that scientists may have already found evidence for the elusive particle. The key appears to be that the particles that make up the Higgs field are of various 'strengths', and some of those particles may tug on others very weakly. "The lightest Higgs can be very light indeed, but it would not have been seen at [CERN's Large Electron-Positron (LEP)], because LEP experimenters were looking for an energetic collision that made a Z that then spit out a Higgs. That wouldn't happen very often if the lightest Higgs and the Z hardly interact. 'Just within the simplest supersymmetric model, there's still room for Higgs that is missed,' Yuan says. However, this lightweight Higgs is not exactly the Higgs everyone is looking for, says Marcela Carena, a theorist at Fermilab. 'The Higgs they are talking about is not the one responsible for giving mass to the W and Z,' she says. It can't be because it hardly interacts with those particles, Carena says. Indeed, in Yuan's model, the role of mass-giver falls to one of the heavier Higgses, which is still heavier than the LEP limit, she notes."

Comments

the last place you look

[tverbeek]

Turns out it was under the couch all this time.

Re:the last place you look

[clonan]

The extra wieght of the Higgs particle is what makes the change fall out of my pocket!

I knew it wasn't me!!!

Re:the last place you look

[onion2k]

I've got one here on my desk. Curiously it looks, and smells, just like an orange.

Tastes like an orange too.

Actually, come to think of it, I think this might be an orange.

Re:the last place you look

[Hognoxious]

Search in reverse order - you'll find it quicker that way.

Re:the last place you look

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep ... Were all doomed!

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson_(fiction) "In the science fantasy series Lexx, one character points out that although all-out nuclear war sometimes destroys all life on planets as advanced as Earth, it is much more common for such planets to be obliterated by physicists attempting to determine the precise mass of the Higgs boson particle, since the moment the mass is known the planet will instantly collapse into a nugget of super-dense matter "roughly the size of a pea."

Re:the last place you look

[Anonymous Coward]

And why exactly would the world collapse to the size of your package?

Re:the last place you look

[SL Baur]

The extra wieght of the Higgs particle is what makes the change fall out of my pocket! Perhaps, but more importantly, it is not symmetric and has been known to attract left or right socks more strongly than the other. This explains the dryer effect.

Re:the last place you look

[vtcodger]

***Perhaps, but more importantly, it is not symmetric and has been known to attract left or right socks more strongly than the other. This explains the dryer effect.***

Doesn't the drier affect have to do with putting two pairs of black socks into the washer and getting three black socks and one blue one out of the drier? Perhaps you were thinking of the DB25 affect where when reassembling an elderly computer system you will -- with 50% probability -- find that when attempting to make the last connection you are trying to plug a male connector into a male socket?

Re:Am I missing something?

[TrebleJunkie]

Ah.. Found my own answer.

"In physics, the photon is the elementary particle responsible for electromagnetic phenomena. It is the carrier of electromagnetic radiation of all wavelengths, including gamma rays, X-rays, ultraviolet light, visible light, infrared light, microwaves, and radio waves."

For some reason, my feeble mind never really made that connection.

Re:Higgses

[IndustrialComplex]

Nasty Hobbitses...and their mean Higgses make Precious feel so heavy.

Re:Higgses

[Shadow Wrought]

Higgses ...must be one of the ugliest plural forms I've recently encountered.

You say that now, but she'll look better after a couple of drinkses.

Re:For those that went "wtf?!"

[calebt3]

Give him a break. He's new here.

will CERN become a theme park now?

[petes_PoV]

So they won't need their brand-spanking new accelerator after all!

Maybe we could put it to good use as a theme park ride instead. Imaging all those superconducting magnets accelerating your cart up to 99.99% of the speed of light - what a ride that would be.

With the relativistic effects, you might even be able to come out of the ride before you went in.

The fact that it operates in a vacuum might be a problem ... have to think about that.

They were looking where?

[shadowofwind]

"...the Higgs boson may already have been found in previous observations of the known universe." But what about in observations of the unknown universe, did they find anything there?

Re:Higgses

[Anonymous Coward]

Higgses ...must be one of the ugliest plural forms I've recently encountered.

You say that now, but she'll look better after a couple of drinkses. ... and if you're interested in plural forms, you need to make sure she's had a couple of drinkses too.

Re:For those that went "wtf?!"

[DirkGently]

So are you. ;-)

Re:For those that went "wtf?!"

[mortonda]

you too... ;)

What's this ... ?

[MrNougat]

What's this ... behind your ear ... ?

Oh, look! It's a Higgs boson!

Re:Yikes!

[Yetihehe]

yes, no, maybe

This isn't the Higgs Boson you're looking for

[Mike Van Pelt]

This isn't the Higgs Boson you're looking for.

You can go about your business.

Move along.

Hiding right in front of us?

[PinkyDead]

Clearly the Higgs Boson was contained within an SEP field.

Which suggests that we are one step closer to actually creating an infinite improbability drive - the ramifications of which are... well I don't know, but they are at least big, possibly huge.

Re:For those that went "wtf?!"

[DeVilla]

Quit tormenting the youngsters.

Re:Am I missing something?

[ColdWetDog]

Lets take the simple case of a scalar potential V(r) which is given by the integral over the vector field F(r) along some path C. Hence, V(r) is proportional to 1/r for both gravity and electromagnetism.

Simple .

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

Time long ago, galaxy far away

[Latent Heat]

. . . these are not the Higgs' bosons you are look for.

Re:Yikes!

[Waffle Iron]

Am I really the only one worried that determining the precise weight of the Higgs Boson will result in the Earth being crushed into a tiny particle the size of a pea?

Perhaps, but in the process we'd obtain important new data that greatly reduces the uncertainty in the parameters of the Drake Equation.

Re:For those that went "wtf?!"

[dreamchaser]

Y'all forgot to tell the kids to get off your lawns. Damn old farts...

Re:Dear fucking assholes (Slashdot editors)

[DigitAl56K]

I have no idea what you're talking about. I only read the summary and I completely understand that there are different sizes of these Higgs Boson thingies that can be heavy or light, but the light ones are the red-headed step children of the higgs boson family in that nobody really wants one, and that they may or may not interact with things in particle accelerators and/or each other, and that most of them are named with letters near the end of the alphabet.

I now feel fully qualified to provide insightful comments and am ready to receive your positive mod points!

Re:For those that went "wtf?!"

[Warbothong]

"...if it exists, the Higgs boson has an enormous effect on the world around us.[citation needed]"

Re:For those that went "wtf?!"

[RockWolf]

Someone pass me a rattle?

Re:Am I missing something?

[doctorfaustus]

I don't think that word means what you think it means.
 
It's all relative, friend.

Re:Am I missing something?

[tubapro12]

Don't forget, Really Really Strong Force is 64 brown grues.

(At first glacne, I saw "grues" in place of your "gluons" for some reason).

Re:Am I missing something?

[ColdWetDog]

It's all relative, friend.

Absolutely!