Tech UPTechnologyPhysicists might at last have found the
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Physicists might at last have found the

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At a seminar held today at CERN on the eve of one of the great events of the year in particle physics, the ICHEP2012 conference in Melbourne, Australia, those responsible for the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the Large Hadron Collider ( LHC) have presented preliminary results in the search for the Higgs boson , also known as the “God particle”. The experiments allowed to observe a new particle in a region of masses that oscillates between 125 and 126 giga electron volts (1 GeV is equivalent to the mass of a proton). This unit of energy is used to represent the mass of the particles.

As the researcher Joe Incandela has explained, there is no doubt that it is a new particle, that it is a boson, and thatis the heaviest boson found so far. All its properties point to the fact that it is the Higgs boson, the last of the “not found” pieces of the theoretical scheme known asStandard Model of Particles and Forces. Scientists have spent decades trying to confirm the existence of this element, which, according to the aforementioned model, would explain why some particles have mass and others do not.

According to Rolf Heuer, director of CERN, this is a historical milestone and, although more detailed studies and many statistics are still needed to be able to bring to light all the properties of the new particle, it seems that it will help tounveil some of the great mysteries of the universe. After all, only 4% of the cosmos is made up of visible matter, and with the “trump card” of the Higgs boson, astrophysicists could begin to explain how the remaining 96% works.

Spanish participation

Spain is one of the main contributors to CERN , its contribution amounting to 8.11% of the total contributions for 2012. The participation of Spanish research groups in the LHC has the support of the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, through the National Particle Physics Program , and the National Center for Particle, Astroparticle and Nuclear Physics (CPAN), Consolider? Ingenio 2010 project. In addition to having designed and built several subdetectors that are key in the search for new particles in At the LHC, Spanish groups participate prominently in its operation and maintenance, as well as in the collection, processing and analysis of the collisions produced by the experiments, including those that may lead to the observation of the Higgs boson.

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