God Particle: Is Hunt For Higgs Boson Over?

Scientists to make an announcement that could us closer to discovering the mysteries of universe.

The hunt the fabled "God particle" that lends mass matter and holds the universe together could soon over.

Scientists giving a progress report the search later are expected to say they are almost at the of confirming the existence of Higgs boson.

In December last year scientists the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) - the "Big Bang" particle accelerator recreates conditions a billionth a second after the birth of the universe - revealed they had a first tantalising glimpse of the Higgs.

then they have sifted through vast quantities of data innumerable high energy collisions in an to reduce the odds of wrong.

A statistical standard of proof as "five sigma" would be the ultimate confirmation a discovery. In this , the chances of a mistake are one a million.

The scientists Cern, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research in Geneva, are likely announce a significant step further the five sigma goal.

They might be at "four sigma", a hair's-breadth away from the Higgs in their grasp. In that case the final "discovery" of the Higgs particle will be a foregone conclusion.

Cern's director research and computing, Sergio Bertolucci, said: "We now have more double the data we had last year.

"That should be enough to see whether the trends we seeing in the 2011 data are still there, or whether they have away. It's a very exciting time."

At the LHC, scientists shoot two beams of protons - the "hearts" of atoms - each other round 27km of circular tunnels at almost the of light.

When the protons smash the enormous energies involved cause them to decay an array of more fundamental particles. These may then decay further into more particles.

By following the decay patterns, scientists hope see the "fingerprint" of the Higgs boson.

Physicists need the Higgs to plug a gaping in the "Standard Model", the theory that explains all the particles, forces and interactions making the universe.

So nothing has been observed to account mass, and the fact that some particles weigh more others.


Adapted from: Sky News, July 4, 2012.