Ben Kilminster
Ohio State University
Friday, April 11, 2008
4:00 pm in SPL 57
Fermilab's race for the Higgs boson
Abstract: One of the most important mysteries in our understanding of the universe is how elementary particles acquire mass. Our best explanation for this requires the existence of a particle called the Higgs boson, which has not yet been directly observed. Particle physicists at Fermilab, near Chicago, are currently capable of producing and detecting Higgs bosons from collisions of matter and antimatter at very high energies. I will explain what exactly these physicists are looking for, and present the experimental challenges involved in a few particular methods for differentiating Higgs bosons from other background processes. Finally, I will discuss future prospects for Higgs boson discovery at Fermilab, as well as the discovery potential of future experiments.
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