LHC Prepares Marathon Higgs Hunt

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LHC Prepares Marathon Higgs Hunt

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday December 13, 2010 @04:08AM from the billion-dollar-gamble dept.

gbrumfiel writes "Physicists at the Large Hadron Collider are preparing to run the collider until the end of 2012 in the hopes of finding the Higgs particle, part of the mechanism that endows other particles with mass. The machine was originally supposed to stop in 2011 for a year long upgrade, but scientists now think they can find the Higgs if they run for longer. 'If we stop the machine with 3,000 people apiece in the experiments waiting for data, there is no way we could get home at night without having slashed tyres on our cars,' says Sergio Bertolucci, CERN's director for research and computing."

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They're just taunting the 2012ers by GrumblyStuff · 2010-12-13 04:10 · Score: 5, Funny

That's so mean.
1. Re:They're just taunting the 2012ers by Lashat · 2010-12-13 04:35 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  If they announce that they are stopping the machine on December 21, 2012, I'm on the next flight off this rock.
  
  --
  For every benefit you receive a tax is levied. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
2. Re:They're just taunting the 2012ers by mcgrew · 2010-12-13 06:33 · Score: 2
  
  Relax, December 2012 is the date I'm eligible for retirement. The world as we know it won't change, but the world as I know it will.
  
  --
  Free Martian Whores!
"3,000 people apiece in the experiments" by Sockatume · 2010-12-13 04:11 · Score: 4, Funny

"If we stop the machine with 3,000 people apiece in the experiments"
Woah woah woah, I think someone got confused about what they're meant to be colliding here. I don't think smashing grad students is the answer.

--
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
1. Re:"3,000 people apiece in the experiments" by Nidi62 · 2010-12-13 04:14 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I don't know. As a grad student myself, it doesn't sound much different than what I'm going through now, and a lot less painful.
  
  --
  The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
2. Re:"3,000 people apiece in the experiments" by AdmiralXyz · 2010-12-13 06:17 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  "4, Insightful" instead of "Funny", eh? Must be a lot of grad students with mod points today.
  
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  Dislike the Electoral College? Lobby your state to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
After 2012 by doublee3 · 2010-12-13 04:18 · Score: 5, Funny

"Physicists at the Large Hadron Collider are preparing to run the collider until the end of 2012" Thanks captain obvious. I'm not a moron, I know they won't be running it AFTER the world ends.
What if it doesn't exist? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-12-13 04:18 · Score: 2, Insightful

Not saying it does or doesn't, but at what point would they would decide to quit searching it for it?
1. Re:What if it doesn't exist? by maxwell+demon · 2010-12-13 04:22 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Not saying it does or doesn't, but at what point would they would decide to quit searching it for it?
  Probably at the point at which they traced, with sufficient statistics, the whole energy range where the Higgs may be found, and didn't find a trace of it.
  
  --
  The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
2. Re:What if it doesn't exist? by grimJester · 2010-12-13 05:04 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  A few years, maybe 3-5, should be enough to rule out the Higgs over the entire range of masses it could have. From what I gather, since the percentages of some processes no longer add up to 100 at LHC energies, something has to be there. It's theoretically possible this something could be heavy enough and hard enough to see that the LHC wouldn't find it, but no actual models predict anything that would be invisible at the LHC.
3. Re:What if it doesn't exist? by Maritz · 2010-12-13 05:18 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  I'm sure some physicists will be actually quite disappointed by finding the Higgs. Although it seems to be required in order for the standard model to be a success, it would actually be quite exciting if it isn't found as it means a whole different paradigm for mass is at work in the real universe. I believe for example I've seen Brian Cox say that he would be more excited by a lack of a Higgs than by finding it, although the politicians who fund these things might not be too happy I suppose.
  The main reason that there is a broad consensus that the Higgs exists is simply that nobody seems able to think of a simpler mechanism through which mass might work.
  
  --
  I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
4. Re:What if it doesn't exist? by Steve+Max · 2010-12-13 05:57 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Actually, we'd love to see the Higgs, and something else. Other Higgs-like particles, supersymmetric particles, Kaluza-Klein modes, anything else. This would confirm that the standard model is a good approximation for the energy ranges where we're using it, and that there is something beyond that. Not finding the Higgs would be interesting too, because we'd have to rethink almost everything we know.
  The worst-case scenario is finding the Higgs and nothing else. Then we'd be out of jobs.
5. Re:What if it doesn't exist? by Steve+Max · 2010-12-13 08:41 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Actually, I work with neutrinos. The latest MiniBooNE/MINOS results are really, really weird; I'd hold any conclusions for now, because they have very little statistics for the antineutrino runs (and some lack of knowledge of the primary proton beans). Some say the next MINOS analysis is already on its way and will be very surprising, but we'll see.
  The main problem is that those experiments suggest that CPT symmetry is broken (or, in non-technical terms, that a reaction with antimatter isn't the same as the same reaction with matter with the opposite charge, time reversed and seen in the mirror). CPT symmetry can be shown to be equivalent to Poincaré invariance, which means that these results challenge not only the standard model, but special relativity itself. Such an extraordinary claim needs really extraordinary evidence, so let's wait for more statistics for now.
Re:Coincedence? by maxwell+demon · 2010-12-13 04:25 · Score: 2

Ah, I understand now. They didn't predict the end of the world, but the end of the search for the Higgs particle!

--
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Typo in summary by srussia · 2010-12-13 04:31 · Score: 3, Funny

"Physicists at the Large Hadron Collider [CC] are preparing to run the collider until the end, in 2012.

--
Set your phasers on "funky"!
Re:slashed tires? by martas · 2010-12-13 04:49 · Score: 2, Informative

Not paining a very good picture of their community there, is he?
Work on your humor detector. Ask Penny for help.
Right back at ya. That was a joke.

Also, did anyone else read his name as "Silvio Berlusconi?" Seems like a misspelled version, or something...
Not if you're Italian or speak Italian. But it's always like that, if you're not familiar with some class of objects, it's difficult to tell apart the sub-classes (as in "for Asians all Europeans look alike" and vice versa).
I happen to speak Italian, and I grew up watching Italian TV. So yeah, take your haughty tone and get off my lawn.

--
weinersmith
Re:I Got A Bad Feeling About This... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-12-13 04:55 · Score: 2, Interesting

Yes, that's right, because looking for the Higgs is not like looking for your keys in the drawer, but like looking for a "shooting star". You can say "Oh, my keys are not in the drawer, I looked twice", but you can't say "Oh there are not shooting stars (well, meteorites to be precise), I looked at the sky twice". In particle colliders you get bazillions of events, you register a tiny fraction of them and by analyzing a fraction of the ones you registered you try to build the big picture, so the more experiments the better your chance of "seeing" exotic events.
Re:I Got A Bad Feeling About This... by andyr86 · 2010-12-13 05:06 · Score: 2

I didn't think they had high enough luminance for the resonance cascade yet? ....oh
Gee, why cooperate when you can be redundant? by Rich0 · 2010-12-13 05:46 · Score: 5, Insightful

The article stated that a big driver for continuing the search at current energies is that Fermilab is right on their heels and might find the Higgs first if they take a break for a year.
As I see it, the Higgs could fit into one of two energy ranges:
1. A range that the limited LHC and Fermilab can both probe now, with the LHC having some advantage.
2. A range that only the full LHC can reach.
If it falls into the latter, then nobody is discovering the Higgs for a few years until they get the LHC in gear. If it falls into #1, does it REALLY matter that much who finds it first?
If what we care about is the accumulation of knowledge then we should cooperate and not compete here. Retask the LHC for higher energies, and have Fermilab continue to explore the lower-energy space. This way we find the Higgs more quickly as we have two non-redundant operations working on the problem, rather than having one be completely redundant.
Also, who knows what other interesting physics we'll find at the higher LHC design energies, that we're just pushing off for years sticking where we are at now?
Can't the lead authors on the competing 1000-author papers maybe agree to pool their efforts, and settle for first and last on a 2000-author paper instead? :) Then we poor taxpayers footing the bill can at least feel like we're all getting SOMETHING for our money...
1. Re:Gee, why cooperate when you can be redundant? by grimJester · 2010-12-13 06:20 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  As I see it, the Higgs could fit into one of two energy ranges:
  
  1. A range that the limited LHC and Fermilab can both probe now, with the LHC having some advantage.
  2. A range that only the full LHC can reach.
  
  If it falls into the latter, then nobody is discovering the Higgs for a few years until they get the LHC in gear. If it falls into #1, does it REALLY matter that much who finds it first?
  Currently excluded
  
  Tevatron sensitivity, slide 18
  
  Only the 180 - maybe 190 GeV range is allowed but outside the Tevatron's reach energy-wise. The LHC and Tevatron aren't redundant, though. Any signal seen by both can be combined for more certainty.
  
  Upgrading the LHC from 7 to 14 TeV doesn't really help find the Higgs.
  
  Also, who knows what other interesting physics we'll find at the higher LHC design energies, that we're just pushing off for years sticking where we are at now?
  I don't know what the odds of not seeing SUSY at 7 TeV but seeing it at 14 are, but I don't think they're that great. If SUSY exists at the electroweak scale, at least some of the particles should be seen at 7 TeV. OTOH, colliding at 14 TeV should make it easier (faster) to see new particles, even if they are around 1 TeV. Dunno what the arguments for and against running a year more before the upgrade have really been.
2. Re:Gee, why cooperate when you can be redundant? by Rich0 · 2010-12-13 08:53 · Score: 2
  
  So, the first half of your discussion is a great explanation of why the guys running those projects don't want to cooperate. It has nothing to do with why those of us paying the bill shouldn't force them to do so anyway.
  The second half of your post was about the benefits of redundancy, and I'll agree with those. However, any discovery made by Fermilab certainly would be confirmed or refuted by the LHC once it is running again. I'm sure they'll get around to it before they give out the Nobel prizes, unless they decide to pull an Obama again. :)
3. Re:Gee, why cooperate when you can be redundant? by Urkki · 2010-12-13 11:53 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  So, the first half of your discussion is a great explanation of why the guys running those projects don't want to cooperate. It has nothing to do with why those of us paying the bill shouldn't force them to do so anyway.
  If the past century of the so called communist countries has taught us anything, it's that real people don't work that way. Results of forced co-operation can't match results of real competition, even if co-operation theoretically has twice the resources. There are things you just can't force.
  Not to mention, work is shared, by sharing the results. Established results of others may be verified, but they're not done "from the scratch". Instead new research is done based on previous shared results of everybody.
Re:Sure by TheRaven64 · 2010-12-13 05:46 · Score: 2

Middle-endian dates, a standard that only the USA could think was a good idea...

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I am TheRaven on Soylent News
relevant website for you: by eleuthero · 2010-12-13 05:49 · Score: 2

You look like you need some peace of mind. Hope that helps.
Need longer than 2012 by Roger+W+Moore · 2010-12-13 08:54 · Score: 2

it would actually be quite exciting if it isn't found as it means a whole different paradigm for mass is at work
That's correct but if it is not found by the end of 2012 that does not mean that the Higgs is ruled out. The 2012 run is to see the Higgs if it is at the low end of its allowed mass range which is where all the data so far suggest it is. However to rule it out we need to run the machine at its full energy and for longer to cover a Higgs with a mass of up to ~1TeV/c2 which is the maximum possible value. After this the Standard Model sans Higgs predicts probabilities of certain processes occurring in at over 100% (the unitarity bound is exceeded) which is obviously nonsense and so we have to see something (Higgs or otherwise) by then.