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Photonics Dictionary

Higgs boson

The Higgs boson is a fundamental particle associated with the Higgs field, a field that permeates the universe and is responsible for giving mass to other fundamental particles through the mechanism known as the Higgs mechanism. The discovery of the Higgs boson was a significant milestone in particle physics as it confirmed a key part of the Standard Model of particle physics.

Higgs field: An omnipresent field that interacts with particles, giving them mass. Particles that interact strongly with the Higgs field gain more mass, while those that interact weakly gain less mass.

Mass generation: The Higgs boson itself is an excitation or quantum of the Higgs field. When particles travel through the Higgs field, they acquire mass, similar to how objects moving through a medium experience resistance.

Discovery: The Higgs boson was discovered on July 4, 2012, by scientists at CERN using the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). This discovery provided experimental confirmation of the existence of the Higgs field.

Properties: The Higgs boson has no electric charge, no spin, and it decays into other particles almost immediately after being produced. Its mass is about 125 giga-electronvolts (GeV/c²).

Standard model: The Higgs boson was the last missing particle of the Standard Model, which describes the fundamental particles and their interactions (excluding gravity).

The discovery of the Higgs boson has deepened our understanding of the fundamental structure of matter and the forces governing the universe. It also opened new avenues of research in particle physics, including studies of the properties of the Higgs boson itself and exploration beyond the Standard Model.
 

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