In 2012, scientists from the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) revealed that they have discovered the Higgs Boson particle. Also known as the God particle, the Higgs Boson is an elementary particle in the Standard Model of Particle physics hailed as a game changer in the field as it could prove how particles gain mass.
A group of researchers, however, has casted doubt on whether or not the supposed particle discovered during experiments with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the largest and most powerful particle collider in the world, is the long sought after Higgs Boson.
In a new study "Technicolor Higgs boson in the light of LHC data," which was published in the journal Physical Review D on Aug. 13, Mads Frandsen, from the Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics Phenomenology of the University of Southern Denmark, and colleagues examined the scientific data from CERN about the Higgs Boson particle.
The researchers found that while scientists agree that the experiments with the CERN particle accelerator resulted in the discovery of a new particle and that the calculations indicate this newly found particle is the Higgs Boson, there was no conclusive evidence that proves the particle was indeed the God particle.
Although it is possible that scientists at CERN have indeed detected the Higgs particle, Frandsen said that there can be other possible explanations for the data since these can also be gathered from other particles.
"The current data is not precise enough to determine exactly what the particle is. It could be a number of other known particles," Frandsen said.
Frandsen explained that what may have been discovered was the so-called techni-higgs particle. The techni-higgs particle has some similarities with the Higgs particle and the two can be easily confused in experiments but these two particles are very different from each other.
For one the Higgs particle is an elementary particle, which means that it cannot be broken down into smaller components. The techni-higgs, on the other hand, is made up techni-quarks, which are believed to be elementary.
Renowned world physicist Stephen Hawking once claimed that the Higgs boson could not be discovered. When CERN announced that the theoretical particle had been detected, the physicist raised concern that the particle could potentially destroy the universe as it could become unstable at very high energy levels.
Frandsen said that additional data from CERN may possibly determine whether the newly found particle was the Higgs or the techni-higgs. If the CERN will upgrade the LHC with a more powerful accelerator, it may be able to conduct direct observations of techni-quarks.
