46.NEW EVIDENCE SHOWS PARTICLE FOUND IN 2012 IS THE HIGGS BOSON

♤ In a breakthrough, researchers at CERN have found the first evidence for the direct decay of the Higgs boson into fermions — a strongindication that the particle discovered in 2012 is the Higgs boson.

♤ The findings confirm that the bosons decay to fermions — a group of particles that includes all leptons and quarks — as predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics.

♤ In July 2012 researchers from the ATLAS and Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiments at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), said they had observed a new particle in the mass region of 125 to 126 gigaelectronvolts (GeV).

♤ Preliminary studies showed the new particle’s properties were consistent with those predicted for the Higgs boson by the Standard Model, but much more work was needed to confirm.

♤ Researchers wanted to clarify whether there was a single Higgs or many different Higgs particles, as predicted by various extensions of the Standard Model

♤ Now the team from the CMS Collaboration has demonstrated that the bosons also decay to fermions in a way that is consistent with the Standard Model Higgs.