Physicists closing in on `God particle`
Baku, July 27 (AZERTAC). Experiments at the world`s biggest atom smasher have yielded tantalising hints that a long-sought sub-atomic particle truly exists, with final proof likely by late 2012, AFP reported.
"We know everything about the Higgs boson except whether it exists," said Rolf Heuer, director general of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN).
"We can settle this Shakespearean question -- to be or not to be -- by the end of next year," he told journalists at a web-cast press conference at CERN headquarters in Geneva.
Researchers at the US Department of Energy`s Fermilab, meanwhile, also reported telltale signs of the elusive particle, heating up a longstanding rivalry between the two high-energy physics laboratories.
CERN and Fermilab have both reduced the range of mass within which the "God particle," as it is known, might be found to a fairly narrow, low-mass band.
Higgs or no Higgs, the stakes are huge either way, and could easily earn a Nobel Prize for the scientists who can take credit for the breakthrough.
The long-postulated particle, first proposed in 1964, is the missing cornerstone of an otherwise well-tested theory, called the Standard Model, which explains how known sub-atomic elements in the universe interact.
British theoretical physicist Peter Higgs proposed a mechanism that would "save" the theory -- if the particle named for him truly exists.
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) -- a 27-kilometre (16.9-mile) ring-shaped tunnel 100 metres (325 feet) below ground straddling the French-Swiss border -- was on track to crack the puzzle within 18 months, he said.
Scientists have increased the amount of collisions delivered to the experiments by a factor of 20 over the last year, he noted.
Researchers search the fleeting, sub-atomic rubble for clues to a host of unsolved mysteries about the origin and make-up of the universe.
"But don`t expect too much too quickly," Heuer cautioned. "We are a factor of ten away from [the collision force] we hope to have at the end of next year. We are just in the middle," he said.
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