Published in Physics World, 10 Dec 2009
For particle physicists analysing the first data from CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva, it is the €4.3 bn question: is there a particle known as the Higgs, which endows all others with mass? But now a study suggests that there might be a far cheaper method of finding the answer – and gargantuan particle accelerators don’t get a look-in.
According to Marco Taoso of CERN and colleagues, the famed Higgs could be leaving its imprint in the light produced in collisions of dark matter, the substance believed by most scientists to make up the vast majority of the universe’s mass. In fact, the researchers think we could be seeing the tell-tale spectral signatures of the Higgs in this way within a year – so sooner, potentially, than the LHC unscrambles data on the elusive particle. […]
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