Higgs Boson Discovered

[Lamplighter]

They found the Higgs boson particle. Now, for a set of new questions…

Is the Higgs responsible for dark energy ?
Are there supersymmetic particles that decay in a Higgs ?
Will they find another hypothesized particle called the “neutralino” ?
Is it the neutralino that makes up “dark matter” ?

Earth’s Most Powerful Physics Machine Gets Back in Action
Science - Marcus Woo - 03.24.15

In the fall of 2008, CERN’s high-energy physicists ran into a problem.
A faulty electronic connection at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland
—the biggest, baddest, most powerful particle accelerator ever built
caused a couple of magnets to overheat and melt,
triggering an explosion of pressurized helium gas….

“It was pretty depressing when we broke the accelerator,”
says Aaron Dominguez, a physicist at the University of Nebraska.
“That was not a good day.”…

Eventually, engineers fixed the LHC, and in 2012,
physicists used it to do what the accelerator was always supposed to:
Find the elusive subatomic particle called the Higgs boson. …

But to prevent another accident, CERN’s engineers had run the LHC
at only half its designed capability. Now, after a two-year hiatus in which
engineers upgraded the accelerator to prevent such magnetic meltdowns,
the LHC is set to smash protons together harder than ever—the way it was intended. …

The plan was to turn on the beam this week, firing clusters of protons
—each containing more than a hundred billion particles— at almost the speed of light.

But on March 21, engineers found a short circuit, which could delay the restart as much as a few weeks.

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