Scientists find signs of missing 'god particle'

Scientists at the CERN physics research centre near Geneva said, however, they had found no conclusive proof of the existence of the particle which, according to prevailing theories of physics, gives everything in the universe its mass.

"If the Higgs observation is confirmed...this really will be one of the discoveries of the century," said Themis Bowcock, a professor of particle physics at Britain's Liverpool University. "Physicists will have uncovered a keystone in the makeup of the Universe...whose influence we see and feel every day of our lives."

The leaders of two experiments, ALTAS and CMS, revealed their findings to a packed seminar at CERN, where they have tried to find traces of the elusive boson by smashing particles together in the Large Hadron Collider at high speed.

"Both experiments have the signals pointing in essentially the same direction," said Oliver Buchmueller, senior physicist on CMS. "It seems that both Atlas and us have found the signals are at the same mass level. That is obviously very important."

Fabiola Gianotti, the scientist in charge of the ATLAS experiment, said ALTAS had narrowed the search to a signal centred at around 126 GeV (Giga electron volts), which would be compatible with the expected strength of a Standard Model Higgs.

"I think it would be extremely kind of the Higgs boson to be here," she told a seminar to discuss the findings. "But it is too early" for final conclusions, she said. "More studies and more data are needed. The next few months will be very exciting...I don't know what the conclusions will be."

HOMING IN

Under what is known as the Standard Model of Physics, the boson, named after British physicist Peter Higgs, is posited to have been the agent that gave mass and energy to matter after the Big Bang creation of the universe 13.7 billion years ago.

While its discovery would cement current knowledge about particles such as electrons and photons, results of work at CERN could also prove it does not exist. Such an outcome would undermine the foundations of accepted theories of the make-up of the universe.

"If the first inklings of the Higgs boson are confirmed, then this is just the start of the adventure to unlock the secrets of the fundamental constituents of the Universe," said Stephen Haywood, Head of the Atlas Group at the STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.

The ATLAS results were followed by explanation of the second experiment, CMS.

"We are homing in on the Higgs," said Claire Shepherd-Themistocleus, Head of the CMS Group at the STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.

"We have had hints today of what its mass might be and the excitement of scientists is palpable. Whether this is ultimately confirmed or we finally rule out a low mass Higgs boson, we are on the verge of a major change in our understanding of the fundamental nature of matter."

Twitter feeds were choked by the volume of tweets mentioning CERN or Higgs and the webcast from CERN was struggling to cope with demand from Higgs-hunters.

"It can still happen that it is a fluctuation, but all we see from both experiments is compatible with what we would expect for a Higgs signal to build up," said Buchmueller.

"But we really need the data from next year to be sure of what we're seeing."