Start with the particle’s mass. No one knew what it would be. Theories presented a range of possibilities. The particle physicists detected has far less mass than some models predict and far more than others.
“It’s too heavy to be light and too light to be heavy. It’s in a mysterious place, and we don’t understand why that is,” says Tom LeCompte, a physicist at Agronne National Laboratory in Argonne, Ill., and the physics coordinator for the ATLAS experiment, the second of the two large detectors at the LHC.
For instance, the “standard model,” which describes subatomic particles and their interactions, predicts that the Higgs boson’s mass should be a quadrillion times higher than the particles detected at CERN, says Dr. Lincoln.
Still, with the discovery of the particle, “we have completed our understanding of the standard model,” he continues. But there are mysteries that may point to something beyond it. It’s still unclear where gravity fits into this model, for instance, as well as dark matter and dark energy. The discovery of dark energy, which is accelerating the expansion of the universe, garnered its discoverers their own Nobel Prize in Physics in 2011.
The discovery of the Higgs boson “gives us a little frayed thread sticking out of the quilt that we will, of course, tug at” hoping to unravel these mysteries, he says.
Higgs and Englert will split the prize’s $1.2 million purse and are slated to receive the award at a ceremony in Stockholm Dec. 10.
Article Appeared @http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2013/1008/Higgs-boson-work-leads-to-one-Nobel-Prize.-Could-there-be-another-video