We’ve already discussed what the Higgs boson is theorized to be and how important it is to the standard model of physics and how — if it exists — it plays a major role in explaining how particles acquire mass. In that same discussion, we noted that there’s a distinct possibility that the Higgs boson may not even exist, and pointed out that both the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and Tevatron, two massive particle accelerators both searching for the Higgs (among other things) have both searched much of the energy ranges we expected to find the Higgs with no luck. So, then, what does it mean if we don’t find the Higgs at all?
Pointing out that there’s a possibility that the Higgs boson may not exist and that there are other theories around what a Higgsless universe would look like is a fairly controversial statement. When we noted the fact in our last article, there was criticism that such theories have not been vetted or experimentally proven. It’s true, the Higgs is still our best bet for explaining how particles acquire mass, as opposed to simply being energy. Even so, Scientific American reports that the LHC and the Tevatron have both completed surveying over 95% of the energy levels where the Higgs is posited to reside, and neither collider has seen any indication of the particle in their experiments.
No discussion of a Higgless universe would be complete without mentioning Stephen Hawking, who several years ago controversially bet in public that the LHC and any other accelerator looking for the Higgs could search for years and would never find the Higgs. Physicist Peter Higgs, the man after whom the Higgs boson is named, as well as the majority of the scientific community, remain on the other side of the debate, pointing out that the Higgs will be found-it’s just a matter of time.
However, time may be running out. The latest report on the progress of the LHC, presented at the Biennial International Symposium on Lepton-Photon Interactions in Mumbai, India, revealed that over the entire energy range that the LHC had explored to date, from 145 to 466 GeV, the Higgs boson had been excluded with a 955 probability. This means that physicists are 95% certain that the Higgs boson does not exist in those energy ranges, and worse, those are the energy ranges in which we expected to find the Higgs. Unless something changes with our current understanding of where the Higgs boson may be and how we can observe it, it’s very possible that in the next few years we may be looking at a universe where the Higgs boson or Higgs Field simply do not exist, and we need to find another explanation for how particles that have mass get it.
This isn’t to say the search is over. Quite the contrary, a 95% probability of exclusion still leaves a 5% chance that the Higgs is indeed in the predicted energy ranges and simply hasn’t been observed yet. Add to this the fact that the LHC has been amassing incredible amounts of data that supercomputers around the globe have yet to completely process and analyze, and the Higgs may still be out there. Additionally, there are lower energy ranges, from 114-145 GeV, where Fermilab (operators of Tevatron) say the Higgs may yet exist, have yet to be thoroughly explored, even though they’re certainly in range of the generation of particle accelerators prior to the LHC.
Regardless, the search continues for the Higgs boson, and the LHC should be able to either exclude additional energy ranges (or the ones already explored with higher confidence) by the end of 2011, with more analysis completing in early 2012. However, the physics community is coming to terms with the possibility that the Higgs boson, while it may work out neatly mathematically, may not be able to be experimentally proven at this time. Many physicists have already started thinking about Higgsless models of the universe. As with every tested hypothesis that yields mixed results, it may be time to move on to other theories that go beyond the standard model of particle physics to explain how particles acquire mass, as controversial as the supposition may be.