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Could the Higgs boson help scientists find dark matter?

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Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – @BednarChuck

Two of the greatest scientific research projects of our time – the discovery of the Higgs boson and the search for dark matter – may be related, as researchers from the Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden explained in a new Journal of High Energy Physics paper.

According to Discovery News, the discovery of the so-called “God particle” in 2012 came after a search that lasted several decades. The particle mediates the Higgs field, which endows all matter with mass, and serves as the missing link of the Standard Model of physics, the website said.

But what about dark matter?

However, while the Standard Model itself governs our understanding of the quantum world, the authors of the new study notes that it does have some limitations, including the fact that it fails to explain the source of the tremendous amount of dark matter contained in the universe.

However, Chalmers University research scientist Christoffer Petersson and his colleagues have come up with a new theory that could fill in some of the gaps. They suggest that the Higgs boson could decay in an alternative way than has been observed by researchers thus far, and propose a new particle model based on what is known as supersymmetry.

[STORY: Researchers looking to 'break physics' with LHC Run Two]

This new model, Petersson’s team explains, contains more elementary particles than the Standard Model, including dark matter. The model also gives the Higgs boson different properties than the Standard Model predicts, and proposes that the particle can disintegrate into a photon (a particle of light) and particles of dark matter. These properties are extremely difficult to find, though, and scientists would have to specifically look for them in order to find them.

Could completely change understanding

While there have been hints suggesting that supersymmetric particles exist, definitive proof has been elusive thus far, according to Discovery News. In the next round of experiments being conducted at the CERN Large Hadron Collider, however, particle collisions will be increased to record levels of energy. Those experiments may provide additional evidence of supersymmetry, as researchers look for properties of the Higgs boson suggested by the new model.

“It’s a dream for a theorist in particle physics. LHC is the only place where the model can be tested. It’s even nicer that two independent experiments are going to do it,” Petersson said. “If the model is found to fit, it would completely change our understanding of the fundamental building blocks of nature. If not, just the fact that they are willing to test my model at CERN is great.”

[STORY: God particle findings were inconclusive, new analysis suggests]

The amount of data collected during the initial round of experiments at the collider was unable to either prove or disprove the Chalmers University model, the researchers said. However, Zeynap Demiragli of CERN’s CMS experiment, one of the two teams conducting the new analysis, noted that they the model is already being tested “in other ways and with more data.”

The original experiments at the collider found that Higgs particles rapidly decayed into particles that could be measured by the detectors, including muons (the electron’s more massive cousin), Discovery News said. If supersymmetry is real, however, it could have another mode of decay – disintegrating into photons and dark matter particles. Demiragli’s CMS team and colleagues at the Atlas experiment plan to monitor the boson for this decay mechanism.

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Source: http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1113347880/could-the-higgs-boson-help-scientists-find-dark-matter-030615/


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