JULY 2012

THE SANDS OF TIME : A PRIMER - THE SEARCH FOR THE HIGGS BOSON

The Theory The work of physicists and scientists from various disciplines in the last century has resulted in many important scientific discoveries and given the world insight into how our known universe work. The most defining framework to emerge in the last 40 years is the Standard Model of particles and forces which postulated that the universe is made up of basic building blocks commonly referred to as fundamental particles, 6 leptons and 6 quarks particles (12 particles) and governed by the electromagnetic, strong and weak forces (3 forces). The understanding of the relationship between fundamental particles and forces has since helped scientists explain a host of experimental results and precisely predicted a wide variety of situations. However, the most common force in everyday life, gravity is not part of the Standard Model because scientist have yet to understand how gravity fits into the Standard Model theory and how objects acquire mass at the subatomic level. To help complete the Stand Model picture, scientists need to discover an illusive particle called the Higgs boson. The Particle The starting point to understanding the Higgs Boson is perhaps knowing what scientists call the Higgs field. Scientists theorised that the Higgs field was formed about a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang, and before the formation of the Higgs field, all particles existed in equilibrium, perfectly distributed across the universe, had zero mass and were all moving around at the speed of light. In fact, gravity, the most common force known to man did not exist immediately after the big bang. However, when the Higgs field kicked-in it destroyed the particle symmetry that existed and thus gave mass to different subatomic particles. So the Higgs field can be thought of as being made up of particles called Higgs Bosons and so when objects in the universe interact in the Higgs field they are given mass via the Higgs Bosons. The determination of the existence of this invisible energy called the Higgs field, and consequently the discovery of the Higgs Boson is the scientific holy grail. However, there are many challenges, the first one being determining the mass of the Higgs Boson itself and secondly, the shape of the particle. Observing the Higgs Boson will help fill a big hole in the Standard Model as it will attempt to explain how particles get mass and thus the role of gravitational forces.
Copyright @Visum Global Ltd, 2012 - It is illegal to copy, reproduce or print or alter in any form without specific permission of the author. Suggestions and ideas welcome

JULY 2012

The Tools The search for the Higgs Boson is not the only preoccupations of particle physicists and engineers but it does form an integral part of the study into our universe, matter and the anti-matter. Most experimental and theoretical work is often a collaboration of an international group of scientists and engineers representing numerous scientific disciplines and organisations. To conduct high energy particle experiments, scientists and engineers use particle accelerators or Hadron Colliders (HC). They are called Hadron Colliders because they force atomic particles called Hadrons (protons made of quarks) to collide at the speed of light. There are a number of particle accelerators located in various parts of the world but the biggest and largest of them all is appropriately named the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) which runs for 27km in a circular tunnel 100 meters below the Franco-Swiss border at Geneva and operated by European Organization for Nuclear Research popularly called CERN. The whole LHC project is made up of three key parts: The Hadron collider, The detectors (located on four main points along the ring to detect hadron collisions) and the Grid (network of computers used to analyse data from the detectors). The LHC project is very much an international project as various governments (over 100 countries) are involved in providing support and funding to CERN and have engineers and scientists involved in various activities that include designing/conducting experiments, analysing data from detectors and sharing results with the international scientific community and the world. The Experiment For scientists looking for the illusive Higgs Boson the first step involved strip away the electrons from lets say ordinary hydrogen atoms to provide protons to feed into the accelerators. The LHC was then used to accelerate the two beams of protons in opposite directions using two separate vacuums pipes around the 27km loop and allows them to smash into each other at designated points along the circular path. The acceleration of protons is possible because of the use of superconducting magnets (magnets made from super conducting wires and kept at cryogenic temperatures -271C to allow current to pass without resistence). The role of the detectors (ALICE, ATLAS, CMS, LHCb) is to enable the scientists to understanding the new particles that are formed as a result of high energy proton collisions. New particles formed close to the collision points are the most difficult to detect because they are short lived (often disentgrate into other particles) and the most interesting to the scientists. It is in this category that rare events of particles such as the Higgs boson can be seen. After analysing huge amounts of data from experiments conducted in 2011
Copyright @Visum Global Ltd, 2012 - It is illegal to copy, reproduce or print or alter in any form without specific permission of the author. Suggestions and ideas welcome

JULY 2012

at CERN, the scientists and engineers concluded that they discovered a particle consistent with the Higgs Boson. ATLAS and CMS detectors gave the level of significance of the result as 5 sigma on the scale that particle physicists use to describe the certainty of a discovery. To put this into context: 1 sigma means the results could be random fluctuations in the data (anomaly), 3 sigma counts as an observation and a 5-sigma result is a discovery. The results presented by CERN scientists to the world are preliminary, as the data from 2012 is still under analysis. The complete analysis is expected to be published in the coming months. Should the evidence from the 2012 experiments confirm the existence of the Higgs Boson, the next stage will be a detailed and careful study of its properties. Successful completion of this second stage will bring scientist closer to uncovering new physics, explaining dark matter and other mysteries of our universe.

The Benefits Apart from getting new insight and knowledge into how our universe work, what practical evidence do we have to point to as benefits of having expensive particle acceleration technology? First and foremost, the most common and obvious benefit to emerge from CERN is the world wide web development of HTTP and thanks to the work of the American military physicists and engineers for ARPnet development of the Internet and together they have given the world the means to access information at a click a button- you guesed it The Internet. In addition, the semi-conductor industry relies on accelerator technology to implant ions in silicon chips which found themselves in almost all electronic gadgets including smartphones, Laptops, DVDs, MP3/4, etc. Scientists have used accelerator technology to analyse protein structures quickly and accurately, leading to the development of new drugs to treat major diseases such as cancer, malaria and AIDS, and the use of Synchrotron light sources allowed scientists to analyse and define how the ribosome translates DNA information into life, etc. Dr M. Mukanga Director Visum Global LTD
Email: Mukanga@visumglobal.co.uk
Contributor to many online publications and blogs on wide range of issues from Technology, Engineering, Science, Manufacturing, Culture, Politics to Social Development in Africa. www.visumglobal.co.uk
Copyright @Visum Global Ltd, 2012 - It is illegal to copy, reproduce or print or alter in any form without specific permission of the author. Suggestions and ideas welcome

JULY 2012

www.africa21century.blogspot.com www.zambian-economist.com

Copyright @Visum Global Ltd, 2012 - It is illegal to copy, reproduce or print or alter in any form without specific permission of the author. Suggestions and ideas welcome