Higgs boson

The Higgs boson is an elementary scalar particle associated with the Higgs field. Its discovery confirmed the mechanism through which elementary particles acquire mass by interacting with that field.

Higgs field: A scalar quantum field whose nonzero vacuum value gives mass to elementary particles through their interactions with it. The boson is an excitation of this field, not the source of mass by itself.
Large Hadron Collider: A particle accelerator at CERN that collides protons at energies reaching several teraelectronvolts per beam. Its collisions produced the events used to discover the Higgs boson.
Peter Higgs: British theoretical physicist who proposed a mechanism for generating particle masses and lent his name to the Higgs boson. His 1964 paper described a massive scalar particle associated with the mechanism.
Technicolor: A class of theories in which a new strong interaction dynamically breaks electroweak symmetry without an elementary Higgs field. It offers an alternative explanation for electroweak symmetry breaking and particle masses.
Higgs mechanism: A process in which spontaneous electroweak symmetry breaking gives mass to the W and Z bosons and contributes to fermion masses. The boson is the observable remnant of the symmetry-breaking mechanism.
ATLAS experiment: A general-purpose particle detector at the Large Hadron Collider. ATLAS independently observed the new particle in 2012.
François Englert: Belgian theoretical physicist who, with Robert Brout, proposed spontaneous symmetry breaking in gauge theory. Their 1964 work independently established a route to massive gauge bosons.
Supersymmetry: A proposed symmetry relating bosons and fermions, requiring additional partner particles beyond the Standard Model. Many versions predict an extended Higgs sector and testable deviations from the observed particle.
Electroweak symmetry breaking: The transition in which the Higgs field’s vacuum value distinguishes the electromagnetic and weak interactions. It creates the conditions in which the Higgs boson and massive weak bosons arise.
CMS experiment: A general-purpose particle detector at the Large Hadron Collider, designed to study a broad range of collision products. CMS provided the independent discovery observation alongside ATLAS.

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