Its some time since words like "Higgs
Boson", "God Particle", "Large Hadron Collider"
are falling on our ears. It automatically generates curiosity in
anybody's mind. Now, the recent news is that the search for this "God
Particle" is almost over and the scientists working on it for
last so many years will come out of those deep tunnels to reveal its
existence or absence.
The story associated with these
experiments goes as follows:
Long back some time around
1964, a bunch of scientists including Peter Higgs were banging their
heads to understand from where the hell all the sub-atomic particles
like protons, electrons, neutrons get their masses.
It was suggested that, after the Big
Bang, the space was contained by an invisible field called "Higgs
field". Every particle in our universe "swims" through this
Higgs field. Any individual particle will experience a drag because
of this field which can be referred to as a mass of the particle. The
strength of this drag vary from particle to particle. As a
result, some particles are heavier in nature than others. There are
exceptions where the particles like "photon" do not interact with the
Higgs field. Such particles experience a state of no mass. Hence, they
are travel at such high speed. In absence of Higgs field, all
particles will experience state of no mass and should travel with the
speed of light.
It is not possible to verify the
presence of the Higgs field. So, for a better understanding of how
the field interacts with the particles and impart them with their
masses, it has been considered that there must be a particle present
in this field which acts as a "mediator" responsible for transferring
the force from the field on to all the particles. These force
transferring particles which act as a "mediator" were termed “Higgs
Boson” or more recently known by term "God particle".
These particles gain their mass from the Higgs field and on
interation with other particles imparts them their respective masses.
The Higgs Bosons are like the dense spots in the field with heavy
masses which are very unstable and readily decay into particles with
relatively lower mass like protons.
Apparently the "Higgs Boson"
has heavy mass around 100 to 200 times the mass of proton and so
unstable in nature and immediately gets converted into other sub
atomic particles like protons, electrons or neutrons. Till date we
have experimental evidence for all other known sub-atomic particles
but the " Higgs Boson" still exist in theory.
Scientists have been working to come
up with an experimental evidence of "Higgs Boson". Its
discovery could help to reveal many secrets associated with the
origin of the universe in the context that associates with the mass
and so matter.
The experiment to prove
existence of "God Particle" involves a set up called "Large
Hadron Collider". It consists of a circular tunnel buried inside
the earth with a circumference of 17 miles extended under the
Swiss-French border. Two beams of protons are triggered in opposite
directions through the tubes of this tunnel. At a calculated meeting
point in the tunnel, these beams will smash into each other at a
speed as close as possible to the speed of the light.
Scientists are predicting that
this collision between proton beams will ultimately produce "Higgs
Boson". These "Higgs Boson" will be very unstable and
will immediately decay into stable, lower mass particles. Scientists
study these decay process and the products to infer the existence of
the "Higgs Boson". A spike in the graph may also be
recorded to prove its existence which requires the detectors capable
of detecting particles with a lifetime of a millionth of a billionth
of a second.
The two groups working separately
on different such detectors ATLAS and CMS apparently have recorded
such bumps in their recordings. But there is a lot still to be done
to declare it as a discovery and avoid a situation where the recorded
peaks may be a matter of chance and not a real effect. In spite, the
search of "God particle" has reached a point where people
will start openly discussing its artifact and not just its
existence.
The LHC representation and the information
shared were taken from following links:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/large-hadron-collider/8947263/Science-world-awaits-Cern-announcement-on-Higgs-boson.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/large-hadron-collider/8952584/Q-and-A-Higgs-boson.html
