On July 4, 2012, CERN announced the discovery of a new
elementary particle. If it is the Standard Model Higgs boson, it will be a triumph
for the Standard Model but a nightmare for physics, that is, no sign of any new
physics in the horizon while it is now a fact that Standard model is not
complete. If it is not a SM Higgs boson, then this new particle must be the
gateway for new physics, the beginning of a new era.
With the above fact, I made a comment at a particle physics
blog (http://profmattstrassler.com/2012/06/27/this-sites-background-articles-on-the-higgs/#comment-12536
), saying “Now, only 7 days to the CERN news conference on the Higgs update. If
CERN made an announcement about the discovery of the SM Higgs in that
conference outright, it will eventually be proved as a transient vision. A
“bigger” gadget will eventually overturn it. Have you ever considered covering
this spot about Higgs (being a shadow of the reality)?”
After the July 4th CERN news conference, many
physics blogs openly announced that the SM Higgs boson was discovered. However,
for public who read the New York Times report on that news conference, he
will not know that the SM Higgs was officially discovered.
In the article “Physicists Find Elusive Particle Seen as Key
to Universe (by DENNIS OVERBYE, The New York Times, on July 4, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/05/science/cern-physicists-may-have-discovered-higgs-boson-particle.html?_r=1
)”, it wrote, “ He [Rolf-Dieter Heuer, the director general of CERN] and others
said that it was too soon to know for sure, however, whether the new particle
is the one predicted by the Standard Model, … It may be an impostor as yet
unknown to physics, perhaps the first of many particles yet to be discovered. …
That possibility is particularly exciting to physicists, as it could point
the way to new, deeper ideas, beyond the Standard Model, about the nature of
reality. For now, some physicists are simply calling it a “Higgslike” particle. … So far, the physicists admit, they know little about their new boson.”
Even for Nature, the easiest way to avoid this nightmare is having a different mechanism which can both replace the Higgs mechanism and provide a path to new physics.
First, it must be a new physics, dramatically different from Higgs idea but encompassing the Higgs mechanism. That is, the Higgs mechanism must be a subset of this new physics.
Second, it must describe “neutron” decay, and this is the minimum criterion for this new physics.
Third, it must describe the lepton decays (such as tau and muon). With this, it will be the Bingo.
Indeed, there is a better mechanism than the Higgs’ already available, and it does give a path to new physics in addition to replace the Higgs. The comparison between the two (this new mechanism and the Higgs’) is available at http://www.prequark.org/Q2.htm .
Now, the nightmare is no more. The new era has begun.
