Higgs Boson Discovered

[ZenGum]

Although to be strictly accurate, I should have said New Boson discovered; probably Higgs.

The physicists were a little reticent to call the discovery a "Higgs boson", preferring to call it the discovery of a "new boson".

That's because they don't yet know its properties – and so can't confirm how similar it is to the Higgs of the standard model. "It's the beginning of a long journey to investigate all the properties of this particle," says Heuer.

One property that needs to be investigated is the particle's spin: the standard model says it should have a value of zero; a more exotic boson would give a value of two. Oliver Buchmueller of CMS says the LHC should be able to determine the new boson's spin by the end of 2012.