What does the 'God Particle' look like?

Wed, 4 Jul 2012 | By Angus Montgomery

The theory is that Higgs Boson – which was proposed by British physicist Peter Higgs in 1964 – exists in the treacly ‘Higgs field’, which was created in the Big Bang. Higgs Bosons ‘stick’ to particles of matter, slowing them down and forming mass.

Physicists have, for the last four years, been trying to find evidence for Higgs Boson at the 27km-long Large Hadron Collidor at Cern. By firing protons at each other at the speed of light, they hoped to recreate conditions similar to the birth of the universe and catch a glimpse of Higgs Boson, which decays almost immediately after being created.

The Cern physicists have released these cool images showing what they’ve been looking for.

This is the simulated decay path of a Higgs Boson – so this is what scientists have been looking for. The Higgs Boson decays into four ‘muons’ – a type of heavy electron, which are shown in red.

This another simulated model for Higgs Boson, showing the particle decaying into two jets of hadrons and two electrons, with energy deposits shown in blue.

This ‘event’ was recorded on 18 June, and shows the muon tracks in red, and the electron tracks coloured in green.

This ‘event’ recorded earlier this year, shows a collision between two protons, and, according to Cern, ‘shows characteristics expected from the decay of the SM Higgs Boson’.

This view also shows the results of a collision between two protons, with the four red lines showing the high-energy muons shooting out. Cern says this also shows evidence of Higgs Boson.

And this scientists haven’t just been limiting themselves to crashing protons together – this image shows the simulation of a lead ion collision.

And this is a simulation of Hidden Valley Z particle breaking into jets.

This image shows the diameter of the Large Hadron Collidor, tucked away underneath the peaceful Swiss countryside…

And here’s the inside of the LHC, with the particles whizzed around to crash into each other in the blue pipe.

These magnets are used to accelerate the particles to get them to crash into each other.

And this is the Cern control room – presumably the scene of much jubilation at the moment.

And it’s not all work for the scientists at Cern. In their free time they can visit this permanent exhibition ‘Universe of Particles’ in the Globe of Science and Innovation.

Or have their portrait painted by Cern’s artist in residence Julius von Bismarck (he’s the bearded chap on the right).

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