Research Highlights

New Higgs study points to Standard Model

Published online 6 July 2014

George Moon

Physicists had been searching for the Higgs particle since it was first theorized fifty years ago in 1964. In 2012 the first instance of the particle was discovered at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, Switzerland. Since then scientists have spent the last two years analysing the data to find out how it fits into the Universe and which theory of physics the particle supports — the standard model (SM) or supersymmetry (SUSY).

Now, scientists from Egypt and across the globe at the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at the LHC in CERN have finally found evidence that suggests the Higgs particle follows the SM — so far it has behaved as predicted by the theory1

The CERN research reports, in a paper published in Nature Physics, a particle with a mass of 125 GeV and properties consistent with the Higgs boson that decays into fermions, in line with the standard model.  

The Higgs was theorized to be the particle that gives mass to fundamental particles, fermions and bosons. Fermions constitute matter, whereas bosons are force carriers that keep all matter together. Previously CERN scientists only found that the Higgs boson decays into other bosons. 

However, further data about how the Higgs Boson functions are needed to confirm the SM theory. 

doi:10.1038/nmiddleeast.2014.172


  1. The CMS Collaboration. Evidence for the direct decay of the 125 GeV Higgs boson to fermions. Nature Phys. (2014) doi:10.1038/nphys3005.