Physicists Hunt the Elusive Higgs Boson

G E N E V A, Sept. 15, 2000 -- Scientists who think they have come tantalizinglyclose to discovering a long-sought subatomic particle have decidedto press ahead for another month rather than immediatelyleave the field — and a probable Nobel prize — to their mainAmerican rival.

When CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, haltsexperiments on the Large Electron-Positron collider, it will haveto sit and watch for five years as the Fermi National AcceleratorLaboratory in Batavia, Ill., has free rein to discover theso-called Higgs boson.

“It would be one of the greatest landmark achievements ofphysics,” said Chris Tully, a Princeton University professor whohas been working on the search for the Higgs boson at CERN.

A ‘Specialized Craziness’

Scientists at CERN have recorded three subatomic collisionswhere they think they have seen “shadows” of the particle,theorized to be responsible for all mass — or weight — in theuniverse.

CERN decided Thursday to keep the Large Electron-Positronrunning through October, postponing for one month contracts tostart the changeover to the Large Hadron Collider, which will takefive years to bring online.

But it decided against a longer run, even though one extra monthis unlikely to be enough to find the particle.

Being able to claim the “discovery” of the Higgs will be afeather in the cap of the successful laboratory.

“Mass is a very important property of matter, and we havenothing in our current theory that says even a word about it,”said Claude Detraz, one of two research directors at CERN.

“I’m sure history will consider it a major step in theunderstanding of matter,” even if “it sounds like a littlespecialized craziness — ‘Higgs boson, Higgs boson, Higgs boson.’”

A Fundamental Question

Tully said the mass of subatomic particles can make objects hardto break or fragile, determine whether they are a conducting metalor an insulator, even create their color.

“For us it’s one of the most fundamental questions we can ask,and that’s why we’ve spent our lives looking for this,” Tullysaid.

CERN has long planned to start Oct. 2 with construction toreplace the LEP, the world’s largest nuclear accelerator, with themore powerful LHC, much desired by the scientific community.

The dilemma resulted from the Higgs-like signals detected as theCERN physicists — who come from all over the world — were pushingthe LEP to its outside limits in its final months.

“We do have some strong evidence for this signature,” Tullytold The Associated Press. But, he conceded, CERN is far fromhaving enough occurrences to be able to claim “discovery” even ifit makes more during October.

But, said Tully, in the give-and-take world of physics, thatwould “give” Fermilab even more of a boost in its own search,helping it to pinpoint where to look.

Judy Jackson, spokeswoman for Fermilab, said it was “a littlepremature” to speculate that the accelerator outside Chicago wouldbenefit.

But, she conceded, Fermilab scientists were “watching withinterest” to see what CERN decides.

Not only is Fermilab a rival for the Higgs discovery, it — likethe U.S. government — also has a stake in seeing the Large HadronCollider start up on time.

“The U.S. and in particular Fermilab are contributing majorelements to the LHC construction,” Jackson said.

Washington is giving about a half billion dollars toward theEuropean project. About one-third of the 7,000 scientists who willwork on the LHC will be from the United States.

Worthy of the Nobel Prize

Originally CERN planned to put the LHC on top of the 11-year-oldLEP inside its circular, 17-mile tunnel under the Swiss-Frenchborder area.

But the engineering problems were too difficult and the decisionwas made to remove the LEP and install the $1.8 billion LHC in itsplace.

CERN would encounter massive extra costs in delayingconstruction of the LHC and risk angering physicists who will haveto defer their experiments they have long dreamed of starting in2005.

Fermilab, which has been undergoing its own upgrade for fouryears, is due to start its Higgs experiments next spring on therefurbished Tevatron, which found another particle — the top quark— in 1996.

CERN has designed the LHC precisely to discover the Higgsparticle, but Detraz said it will have plenty to do even ifFermilab wins the discovery race.

“When Christopher Columbus saw the coast, it was discoveringAmerica, but it was not studying America.”

The long-sought particle was named for British physicist PeterHiggs, who postulated its existence more than 30 years ago at theUniversity of Edinburgh to explain how atoms — and everything elsein the universe — have weight.

Without the particle, the basic physics theory — the “standardmodel” — was lacking a crucial element, because it fails toexplain how other elements have mass.

The Higgs theory is that the usually invisible bosons create afield through which subatomic particles — such as quarks andelectrons — pass.

The particles that find passing through the field to be slowgoing — like going through molasses — pick up more inertia, andmass. The ones that pass through easily remain lighter.

Detraz agreed that the discovery will likely win the Nobel Prizefor physics, but he said the prize should really go to the personwho can figure out who will be responsible for discovering theHiggs because so many scientists have contributed.

“Hundreds of people have dedicated their lives for years to thesearch,” he said.