Talk:Higgs boson/Archive 6

Recentism
I edited and moved around some stuff, per WP:RECENTISM. The primary focus of the first few sentences was the discovery, rather than the known/posited attributes of the particle...which seemed out of place. My knowledge of this subject is limited though, and I think there's still some excessive recentism in the intro that needs to be edited out. (Basically, to properly state what we know of the Higgs first, and then note the timeline of the discovery only following that.) I don't know enough to write a proper intro sentence, and I agree that various previous intros (with vague stuff like "Higgs-like") are just confusing and not correct for obvious reasons of SM vs non-SM, but I'm not sure how to address that. – 2001:db8:: (rfc &#124; diff) 05:26, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

The second coming of the God particle
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/16/second_higgs_spotted/ There appears to be not one Higgs boson “signal”, but two: one at 123.5 GeV (giga-electron volts), the other at 126.5 GeV. The first decays into pairs of Z particles, while the second shows the decay of a Higgs into two photons.


 * Is the 123.5 number solid enough to note? Hcobb (talk) 01:51, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Not really. It are preliminary results from one (of the two experiments), where there is still significant overlap of the 2 sigma uncertainty. So, unless CMS finds something similar, and both experiments feel confident enough to actually publish these results, I do not see any reason to remark on it here.TR 09:45, 18 December 2012 (UTC)


 * The fun part isn't the barbell shape. It's that the two different decay modes point to two different masses. Hcobb (talk) 13:05, 18 December 2012 (UTC)


 * For reference, a number of sources say it's expected to be a measurement anomaly or artifact, rather than a verified double-Higgs. Minimum mention only, if any. FT2 (Talk 15:44, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

The media is not wrong there is no way that this is not a Higgs Boson, the part about media misrepresentation should be eliminated — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.230.201.194 (talk) 19:54, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

This article was not clearly written
It is important in the writing of a dissertation that the construction and syntax of each sentence be done with care. Long run-on sentences tend to obscure meaning. Another problem is the excessive use of obscure terms that are unknown to the targeted reading audience. Proper use of the language is important if the text is to be effective in the communication of ideas. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.123.101.145 (talk) 19:13, 23 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Some of the sentences in this article are a little long, but could you provide examples of sentences with multiple independent clauses joined without proper punctuation/conjunction? This is a technical subject. "Obscure terms" are unavoidable. That is why they are wikilinked. Wikipedia endeavours to record the sum of human knowledge. Simplifying descriptions of technical subjects at the expense of information for an undefined target audience is not necessarily conducive to that goal. If the reading level of the article's text is your only concern, you may be interested in the version of this article at Simple English Wikipedia.  — Sowlos 11:24, 25 March 2013 (UTC)


 * A lot of people have tried to work on this. We do get comments at times about complexity, but it is a complex topic, and people we ask "can you suggest how to improve it" don't seem to have actual ideas, when actually asked how it can be done. So this is where it's at right now. Obviously, if ways exist to do so, without sacrificing quality of information, it would be good.


 * Do you have suggestions of sentences that you can suggest how to reword, or reorganized? It helps if you can find any specific edits to propose/discuss rather than a blanket comment that some parts are run-on, or excessive obscure terms, neither specific nor with suggestions how to improve any issues. Perhaps you could add below, a bullet point list of exact sentences you'd rework, and how you might want to rework them, and let's see if we can improve it that way. FT2 (Talk 12:46, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Don't sell the fur before shooting the bear
The first section of the article states that the Higgs particle is not yet discovered. Another section says how and to whom the Nobel ought to be awarded for its discovery. Something is very, very weird in this story. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.151.186.11 (talk) 12:16, 13 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Hmm, could you be more specific? The award section begins with "There has been considerable discussion of how to allocate the credit for a proven Higgs boson" (my higlighting), i.e. it will only be given to someone if the Higgs boson is proven to exist.--85.230.137.182 (talk) 13:23, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

How do you prove it is the Higgs instead of some odd excited state or combination of previously known particles? Hcobb (talk) 18:13, 13 March 2013 (UTC)


 * As it is the only SM-predicted spin-0 boson, that is the main route they are going down at this time. Particle physicist (talk) 20:07, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

This article is media biased
its huge with too many references from media Pop science as well as CNN!? maybe its only my impression but its seems that the article is made for ignorants with too many informations that are systematic repeated, i wonder who let this happen.(Demonic 23:17, 13 May 2013 (UTC)) — Preceding unsigned comment added by DemonThuum (talk • contribs)


 * I can't find a CNN reference in the article at all. The article is for people who are ignorant about the topic. As for repetition, what exactly is repeated? Bhny (talk) 04:17, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Relationship of Higgs Field and Rotating Superconductor in electromagnetic field
Dr Eugene Podkletnov in his experiment showed apparent mass of an object can be changed when placed over a field created by bi layered superconductive and non-superconductive plate when superconductive layered is superconducting and Meisner effect is shown while rotation is produced in oscilating electromagnetic field. The electron move to the superconducting plate from non-super conducting plate increasing cooper pair electron in the superconducting plate. The cooper pair electron as they are fermions and Superconductor state allows the Quantum effect to become apparent in Macroscopic scale by mechanism of Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC). Cooper Pair Electron interferes with Higgs Field making the particle mass in its field to shift.

Ref 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Podkletnov

Ref 2: Scientific Paper: Weak gravitation shielding properties of composite bulk Y Ba2Cu3O7−x superconductor below 70 K under e.m. field, by E.E. Podkletnov, Moscow Chemical Scientific Research Center.

Ref 3: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooper_pair

Ref 4: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose%E2%80%93Einstein_condensate

Ashkanimanzahrai (talk) 02:54, 15 April 2013 (UTC) Ashkan Imanzahrai


 * As Eugene Podkletnov wikipage says "He is best known for his controversial work on a so-called 'gravity shielding' device" (my highlighting.) This information might be more suitable for his page rather than this page that is supposed to describe the mainstream scientific view.85.230.137.182 (talk) 13:45, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

I would also say 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof'. Ref either http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mtpaley (talk • contribs) 22:39, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

On the origins of the "Higgs" name, again
The Nobel season is approaching and, predictably, a new wave of single-purpose editors descends on the article to push this or that version of the origins of the "Higgs" name (for an earlier episode, see here). It might therefore be worthwhile to remind everybody about how Wikipedia works. No matter whether you believe that Higgs, or Guralnik, or Englert, or the London brothers deserve the credit for the boson, Wikipedia is not the place to set the record straight. A Wiki article can only reflect the commonly accepted version(s) of a given story, relying as much as possible on reliable secondary sources.

In the case at hand, the article contains a section "Names used by physicists" - written, if I'm not mistaken, by editor FT2 - with a box attempting to summarize two common explanations for why the particle is commonly referred to as "Higgs boson". Note once again: the section is not meant to justify why the boson should be called "Higgs". It is meant to explain why it is usually called "Higgs", reporting the various reasons that have been brought forward in popularizing literature by competent authors. The section contained the sentence:


 * "Author Frank Close notes that the paper by GHK was also completed after Higgs and Brout–Englert were published."

Recently, one IP editor removed the sentence with this explanation: "Removed incorrect statement...GHK was complete before seeing Higgs and EB paper. Also received by PRL before Higgs' publish date. See publication and submission dates from PRL. See this link."

Now, I don't have Close's book at hand, but I am assuming that the statement in the Wiki article was correct, in the sense that Frank Close did note that "the paper by GHK was also completed after Higgs and Brout–Englert were published" (FT2, is that the case?). As to the factual correctness of Close's statement, the IP editor stresses that the GHK paper was submitted to PRL before Higgs paper was published by PLB. Leaving aside that half of Close's statement (the part referring to Brout-Englert) would still be literally correct, I find the IP's editor objection excessively lawyeristic. The meaning of Close's statement is that GHK knew about Higgs' and Brout-Englert's papers before they published their own paper, which is undeniable since they cited both. Once again, this may or may not be considered a fair reason for naming the boson "Higgs", but this is not what the discussion is about. It is a matter of fact that this reason has been brought forward by a lot of people, including, apparently, renowned Oxford physicist Frank Close, therefore it is appropriate to mention it in the box about the origins of the name.

After I reverted the first editor's change, a second IP editor (or the same editor from a different IP) modified the sentence as:


 * "Author Frank Close incorrectly notes that the paper by GHK was also completed after Higgs and Brout–Englert were published."

and added:


 * "Ian Sample wrote in "Massive" that GHK's paper is considered the "most comprehensive version of the theory.""

Even if we leave aside all I discussed above, the "incorrectly" in the first sentence is clearly out of place in a Wiki article, since it is not backed up by a reliable secondary source (I mean, who says that Close is incorrect? IP editor 64.134.163.200?). As to the sentence by Ian Sample, it is irrelevant in a paragraph devoted to why the boson is called "Higgs". Differently from the case of Frank Close, it is not clear to me that the opinion of Ian Sample (a journalist) carries any weight here, but if this is the case the sentence should be moved somewhere else. Besides, a sentence like "GHK's paper is considered the most comprehensive" would be frowned upon in a Wiki article, unless it specifies by whom it is considered such.

In summary, I am reverting the two changes, but I suggest that FT2 (or anybody else who has access to the book) verifies that the statement in Close's book is cited accurately. Cheers Ptrslv72 (talk) 15:06, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Update: a third IP editor added the sentence:


 * "Nature Magazine and Ian Sample wrote that GHK's paper is considered "more complete" and the "most comprehensive" version of the theory."

creating a duplicate reference for this article in the process. As I already wrote above, the box is meant to provide two possible explanations for why the boson came to be named after Higgs. Adding a "balancing" statement to the tune that some people consider the GHK paper more complete is beside the point. If we decide to introduce such a statement in the article - in which case we should clarify who those people are - we should introduce it somewhere else.

Anyway, it would be nice if the anonymous IP editor(s) bothered to discuss their changes on the talk page before implementing them. This is the way things go on Wikipedia. Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 22:58, 21 June 2013 (UTC)


 * It's prossible that the IP editor(s) did not notice the edit summaries. I am considering leaving messages on their talk pages asking them if they would like to come here and discuss their changes. Hopefully they'll notice talk page messages. Green  green  green  red 23:37, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

To reply on what Frank Close actually says:


 * Extracts from Chapter 9, The Infinity Puzzle, 2013. Relevant snips underlined, rest is to add context
 * Although several people discovered the mechanism whereby vector gauge bosons can acquire mass, Brout and Englert being the first to publish a relativistic demonstration, only Higgs drew attention to the consequential existence of a massive scalar particle, which now bears his name.


 * By the late summer of 1964 they [Guralnik and Hagen] had "pretty much everything but still had concerns over some fine details." His former mentor Walter Gilbert was lecturing at a summer school at Lake Como, so Guralnik made a special trip to tell him what they had achieved.... At the very time when Guralnik was talking with Gilbert, Higgs’s paper was already in production. This would become apparent only later...


 * Unaware of this even more precious jewel that lay just out of their reach, Guralnik and Hagen drafted a manuscript, and showed it to Kibble, asking for any additional input. Fate was about to deal them a cruel blow. During 1964 Britain had had a series of postal strikes, which had delayed the mail. Their memory of events, as described in several accounts,[29] is that as they were about to send the final version of their manuscript to PRL, Kibble came in and announced that in the backlog of mail were "three papers, one by Robert Brout and François Englert... and two by Peter Higgs." All three also seemed to have discovered how a gauge boson could become massive.


 * Guralnik, Hagen, and Kibble’s work was tightly argued and contained unique insights toward understanding the depth of these new ideas. However, the sad fact was that they had been scooped. They added references to those papers into the text but changed nothing, nor did they add anything as a result of what had happened. They sent the manuscript to Physical Review Letters, where it was received on October 12, 1964.... By that oversight, they had implicitly placed themselves as runners-up...


 * Gerald Guralnik was one of those who approached the finishing line early but failed to publish fast enough.


 * In another of the coincidences in this tale, the editor of PRL received Higgs’s manuscript on the very same day that Brout and Englert’s paper was published. When Higgs’s paper finally appeared in print, on October 19, Brout and Englert were surprised to see that it included a reference to their own: "He couldn’t have seen our paper, so how did he know of it?" Higgs explained: Nambu had been the referee of both papers and "had drawn attention to the work of Brout and Englert. I added a remark about their work." Their researches were truly independent; in 1964 manuscripts were typed and then submitted by the regular mail. [...] There is no dispute that Brout and Englert were first to complete and first to publish. So why is it that Higgs’s name is associated with the massive boson and not those of Englert or Brout? The answer is that so far everyone has been addressing what happened to Goldstone’s massless boson. However, there remains the issue of Goldstone’s other boson—the massive one. This is what Higgs had uniquely included in his revised paper, the one that appeared in PRL. Two years later, he developed the ideas in a longer paper, setting in motion the events that would make his name.


 * So it was that Brout, Englert, and Higgs had all published papers, while GHK were writing their own paper, ignorant of developments due to the British postal strike until the fateful moment when Kibble announced the news.


 * Tom Kibble recalled: "As a matter of fact [in 1964] the Higgs Boson was not seen by anyone as a particularly important feature. The interest [then] was in the way the gauge vector bosons acquired a mass, eating up the Goldstone [massless] Boson on the way. Now of course it’s important because... its observation would confirm the validity of the theory." ... Kibble’s perception of the perceived unimportance historically is in accord with the memories of others, which were aired when the six shared the Sakurai Prize in 2010 . For Englert and Brout, "This was our first paper in field theory and we were somewhat isolated. We didn’t know about Glashow’s work [on the SU2 × U1 model of the weak and electromagnetic forces] at all."


 * During the International Conference on High Energy Physics at Berkeley in 1966, Ben Lee prominently referred to the “Higgs Boson” and the “Higgs Mechanism.” ... As the GHK team, including Hagen, had not completed their paper until after the appearance of Higgs’s original papers, and as Higgs had built on this further during 1966, with a study of how the massive boson decays, Lee’s assessment at that time is perhaps not unreasonable.

As Ptrslv72 says, this is not in any way to judge as Wikipedia editors, or to say if this is fair, or even if it is a "correct" view. Wikipedia is not the place to resolve historical disputes or "set the record straight". It cites the published view in a considerable work about the history of the Standard Model and the Higgs boson, summarizing the author's reasons concisely, and characterizing them accurately. A concise accurate characterization of Frank Close's view as stated in his book is:
 * In considering the credit and naming, Frank Close's view is that GHK were by "cruel fate" and despite their endeavors, "scooped" and had "implicitly placed themselves as runners-up", since they had "approached the finishing line early but failed to publish fast enough", and "the GHK team... had not completed their paper until after the appearance of Higgs’s original papers". The result was that "Brout, Englert, and Higgs had all published papers, while GHK were writing their own paper".

Again, this is not to give our view, or to say if this is fair or even a "correct" view, or if it is how the Nobel Committee or another author might speculatively see it. Wikipedia is not the place to battle out desired views.

It's also worth noting (as Close points out) that the final change to writing the GHK paper - although technically minor - was adding citations to EG and Higgs, which took place after EG and Higgs were published and circulated in print. Extremely minor, but first and second place have hinged on less in the past FT2 (Talk 08:02, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

The precise point at which we will eliminate the word "theoretical" from the first sentence
Scientists are now confident to 7 sigma certainty that this particle exists. For the record, that is 99.999999999% sure. They have, however, only sigma three certainty for the spin and the parity. That is still, however, 99.7% certainty. Now I'm of the camp that we should stop referring to the particle as "theoretical" or "tentatively confirmed" based upon what I'm reading across the board from every article wherein I am trying with absolutely no luck to find some personal justification not to move beyond considering the Higgs confirmed. I'm of the mind that if the scientists themselves are referring to the new boson as "the Higgs boson" (or even "a Higgs boson"), then we're being excessively conservative with this article by not saying the same thing that they are, i.e., that the Higgs boson is real. And that is what the scientists are saying.

But it does seem that, since the article is totally unrestricted and any hero can come along and once again deny the reality of the damn thing with a simple edit, we need to establish some "red line" past which it's not acceptable (and would constitute personal bias against overwhelming scientific consensus) to NOT say that the Higgs boson exists. So I propose that once the spin and the parity have both been established as matching the SMHB predictions to a 5 sigma certainty, then we can no longer describe it as theoretical or "tentatively confirmed."

Until that point, I'm fine with leaving it as a theoretical particle--if by "fine" I mean "gratingly annoyed at." But after that point, even if we're seeing different species of Higgs, the SMHB is confirmed as much as you can possibly ask us to confirm it. After all, if the Higgs ends up being stranger or more multifarious than expected, it's the Standard Model that's doomed, not the Higgs. Gravity survived Newton, etc. Does anyone have a legitimate gripe against that proposal? (Obviously, if news reports come out that it's a graviton or the spilled seed of God Himself, then I won't suggest calling it the Higgs boson. I'm just saying: we're being a tad ridiculous with our expectations here.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:32C5:98C0:21E:C2FF:FEAB:F7AD (talk) 20:22, 15 March 2013 (UTC)


 * We can start saying it's a confirmed Higgs Boson when they have obtained a 5-sigma verification of it's spin and parity. You answered your own question there. User:Particle physicist —Preceding undated comment added 20:02, 23 May 2013 (UTC)


 * 68.69.166.126 (talk) 21:48, 15 March 2013 (UTC)


 * WP:PA, WP:OUTING (completely off-target, BTW), delusions, paranoia... Will anybody do something about this clown? Ptrslv72 (talk) 22:26, 15 March 2013 (UTC)


 * The word theory is not a derogatory term in science. When the word theory is attached to a scientific explanation it is a great vetting. The word is saying that this is our best testable explanation of what we are seeing. While I might have some concern if it was called something along the lines of the Higgs Boson Hypothesis, the use of the word theory is in fact a statement by the scientific community of great confidence and overwhelming supporting data in the topic. Once a topic has earned the theory tag, there is no reason to ever take it away unless the new data makes the position of the theory untenable, as science is ever expanding in understanding. This is a key concept in the scientific method, and in fact one of the most threatened concepts in science right now. We must be very careful to remember that the common definition of words often has little to do with the scientific definition. 71.119.65.245 (talk) 04:19, 2 August 2013 (UTC)Nick F.S.


 * Careful, there. While theory is not a derogatory term in science, it also has specific meaning. Theories are well-substantiated explanations of how and why things happen. Gravitation and matter aren't called theoretical; there are—however—scientific theories about how they work. The Higgs boson is not theoretical (in the common or scientific sense of the word), it is empirical; it can be used to support theories. How it works is—of course—theoretical. — Sowlos 10:07, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

New User
Hello everyone,

I am a new user who was introduced to the Higgs Boson particle by my sister. Where can I learn the best information about this topic in order to be a knowledgeable contributor and editor?Diamondadnrs (talk) 18:26, 9 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I would recommend Gordon Kane's Modern Elementary Particle Physics if you are looking for a low level introduction to any particle physics concepts. Particle physicist (talk) 20:10, 23 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Particle physics does not have a easy entry point. I wish it did but it is a field where quantum mechanics and relativity dominate so it requires some serious work to understand it, I did a physics degree and even that only scratched the surface of particle physics.  This being said I would strongly recommend the text books by Feynman.  Depending on where you are already "Six Easy Pieces: Fundamentals of Physics Explained" or for more depth I recommend the "Lectures On Physics" which was written at about the same time as the Higgs Boson was theorised which makes it especially relevant.  I love physics but you must understand that the language of physics is maths and if you don't have the maths to do it you just can't get into the deeper areas where visualisation ceases to work.  Another book that everyone should read is "Asimov's New Guide to Science" - this is THE best non mathematical science book I have ever come across.  If you have any interest in science (and I hope you do) then you should read this. For a degree level study the book I used most was "Fundamentals of Modern Physics by Robert Eisberg" it is actually quite a old book but it was my definitive reference through the last 2 years of my degree. Mtpaley (talk) 19:36, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Nice work, Wikipedia Administrators, dealing with the nomenclature war
I had just now, after the Nobel Prize was announced today (10/8/2013), noticed here and there on the internet claims that a certain physicist of South Asian origin had been slighted in news reports citing the discovery of the heralded "Higgs Boson." As a Princeton Ph.D. physicist employed by research institutes for more than 30 years, I know a thing or two about physics. The comments relating to S.N. Bose having been slighted, and such, in news items had me surprised and rather disturbed.

I made comments to a Yahoo! news article explaining that Bose had precisely nothing to do with the Higgs boson (after checking to make darned sure I had not missed anything). I turned to the main Wikipedia page to see whether this had been handled. The issue was not visible there. I started to edit it to insert a reasonable disclaimer and read the warning on the edit page. I found the archives and the silly entries from ostensible South Asian nationalists and co-religionists, and saw how effectively it had already been dealt with. Nothing to see here.

All hail Wikipedia! It may be last outpost of objectivity left in the world in the future, as every darned thing becomes politicized.Jabeles (talk) 15:11, 8 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Judging by the recent edits to the first sentence, I am afraid you are too optimistic... ;-) Ptrslv72 (talk) 17:45, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Revamp
This article contains a lot of useful information, however, a lot of it is very long winded and is obviously the results of long edit wars and compromises. We need to neaten it up and make the focus giving the reader information, rather than having lots of equivocation over minor points. Firstly, the intro is WAY too long and contains lots of irrelevant details. The intro should be enough to give the reader a general overview of the topic. In my view it should just have 1 or 2 sentences on: 1. What are the properties of the Higgs boson. 2. The theoretical need for the boson 3. How is was discovered. 4. By who. If any of the points are controversial or not straightforward, we should point the reader to the main article, not have a debate in the intro. I believe a look at the reader comments will support my opinion. As it stands, the article seems more to serve the purpose of pedantic editors, rather than the readers. Ashmoo (talk) 11:14, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Additionally, the "Real world impact" section is mostly just a defense of blue sky research and really doesn't belong in this article. A simple link to Blue Sky research would suffice. Ashmoo (talk) 11:17, 9 October 2013 (UTC)


 * In general I agree with your points (in particular I was never a fan of the "Real world impact" section). However, I would advise you to give the topic some time to cool down before embarking in a big revamp, otherwise your hard work risks being hampered by random passers-by attracted to the article by the recent news. Also, it's quite ungenerous of you to call the previous editors pedantic. You will soon find out  (unless you know it already - I don't know what your background in particle physics is ;-)  that in this field it takes a difficult balancing act to "give the reader information" while avoiding statements that are oversimplified, misleading or downright incorrect. Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 14:02, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

What Is A Higgs Boson ?
Particle Physics must surely be one of the most difficult topics to explain to non-physicists. As a fairly technically competent layman, I would say that I can see the effort to try and explain a Higgs Boson clearly. The links to related concepts are very handy, and anyone with 3 hours to spare might be able to follow them to understanding, which is half the fun of an encyclopaedia. I have managed to edit some other technical articles to read simply for the layman, but I'm over my head here. Can Someone who can teach physics please ground this article, particularly the summary, in layman's terms.
 * What Is a Higgs Boson?

Billyshiverstick (talk) 23:53, 9 October 2013 (UTC)


 * It is (probably) an elementary particle. It was introduced to fix theoretical issues in the models of particle physics, and it is expected that it has been found now. It is related to the Higgs field, which gives particles their mass. --mfb (talk) 08:33, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Formatting of article (overuse of tables)
Why are half of the paragraphs in this article organized into tables? I'm going to resist the temptation to make jokes about Wikipedia editors and the autism spectrum, and instead just suggest that these tables be converted into regular prose. The one in "Confirmation of new particle as a Higgs boson" might actually make sense as a table, but the other four don't. Kaldari (talk) 04:08, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Comparison of the mass of the HB to a familiar element
For clarification I suggest comparing the mass of the Higgs Boson with that of a familiar element, e.g. amending the introduction to read: "... a previously unknown particle with a mass between 125 and 127 GeV/c2 (134.2 and 136.3 amu or more than that of 11 carbon atoms) had been detected", or words to that effect. This is straightforward arithmetic, but I have not found a citation: surely it does not need one, what do you think? GilesW (talk) 13:48, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Higgs-boson's birthday
The article currently starts with:


 * The Higgs boson or Higgs particle is an elementary particle initially theorised in 1964, and tentatively confirmed to exist on 14 March 2013.

I think this gives too much relevance to the date in which the collaborations announced that the new particle did appear to behave as a scalar. In the physics community it is rather the date in which the discovery of the new particle was announced, 4 July 2012, that is commonly regarded as the boson's birthday (witness the deluge of jokes such as "Higgsdependence Day", "Born 4th of July" and so on in almost every conference talk on the subject). Now that we are reasonably sure that the observed particle is some kind of Higgs boson, we can safely state, in retrospect, that the discovery of the Higgs boson was announced on 4 July 2012. I would therefore replace the opening sentence with something like:


 * The Higgs boson or Higgs particle is an elementary particle initially theorised in 1964, whose discovery was announced at CERN on 4 July 2012.

Any thoughts? Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 09:33, 19 November 2013 (UTC)


 * How about The Higgs boson or Higgs particle is an elementary particle initially theorised in 1964, and tentatively confirmed to exist on 14 March 2013 following the announcement of the discovery of a new boson on 4 July 2012. Law of Entropy (talk) 02:11, 20 November 2013 (UTC)


 * IMO, that would be a bit too heavy for an opening sentence. Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 09:12, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

"Real world" impact
Why does it deserves a full paragraph just to make an example (the second)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.109.37.236 (talk) 11:51, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Request for semi-protection
Why is it not semi-protected? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Signoredexter (talk • contribs) 14:56, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Reader feedback: I still don't know what a Hi...
108.64.190.42 posted this comment on 8 July 2012 (view all feedback).

"I still don't know what a Higgs Boson is because it takes physicist just to get through the first paragraph - there is no analogy or example to clarify this invisible thing."

This is incredibly relevant. And it's not just a case of 108.64... lacking the education to understand this. I'm a college student who took 2 years of advanced physics in high school and scored 5s on both AP Physics tests and I have a hard time getting through this article (and many other science-related articles). cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 17:30, 10 November 2013 (UTC)


 * It is most helpful if you can point to specific parts that are impenetrable and what exactly is confusing. I understand that that is an impossible task for the whole article, but any particular section of interest would be a great start.Law of Entropy (talk) 02:01, 20 November 2013 (UTC)


 * The Simple English Wikipedia greatly helps to simplify it. Aryaman Arora 21:54, 30 November 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scientistaryaman (talk • contribs)


 * Is it a boson, just a particle or a wave with 'attitude'. Reservations were expressed when it was announced and this article seems to use all three alternatives. This is one area that makes it hard to understand, particularly if you just want to keep up to date on this topic using Wikipedia. GilR 13:14, 12 April 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gilbert.Rooke (talk • contribs)
 * Yes it is a boson (a boson is a particle with integer spin. The Higgs has 0 spin, so the spin is integer, so the Higgs is a boson). Like all elementary particles it can be described as a particle or a wave (Wave–particle duality).Dja1979 (talk) 15:13, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I seem to remember that the evidence presented was 5 sigma+ sure that there was energy at about the predicted values, but was less than 5 sigma sure that it was a boson. Something about the width of the distribution of the energy. With this in minded, at least one of the videos said that there may be a possibility that it was not a Boson. From this I understood that it should not be considered to be a Boson until this was proven. Maybe, some further publication has occurred since that confirmation. I should check it out, but I found that some physicists started calling it a Boson from that day onwards and this concerned me. I haven't seen this additional confirmation in this Wiki page. However, if you are sure that it was confirmed as a Boson, then I apologise for querying it without have fully checked it out myself. 83.104.248.202 (talk) 00:02, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
 * It was confirmed as a boson in March 2013 (See reference 1 in the info box as I don't seem to be able to link here).Dja1979 (talk) 01:33, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I should probably clarify that all particle not just elementary particle have wave-particle duality. It's just larger particle have shorter wavelengths so observable.Dja1979 (talk) 15:18, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
 * The second sentence was not clear to me, but I don't think it is critical.83.104.248.202 (talk) 00:02, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
 * At the quantum scale all particles show elements that are wave like i.e. diffraction pattern while in other test they act piont like photoelectric effect. So it depends on your question on whether the answer is that they are a particle or a wave.Dja1979 (talk) 01:33, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

No Higgs Field article?
Why is there no separate article on the Higgs field (to my knowledge) in the English Wikipedia, while one exists in the Simple English Wikipedia? Since the Higgs field seems to be the defining physical feature related to the Higgs boson discovery, it seems like it deserves its own article.--125.206.247.129 (talk) 08:22, 23 May 2014 (UTC)
 * The problem is that it is very hard to discuss the Higgs field and Higgs particle separately. We therefore opted to treat them in the same article. This inline with the treatment of most other fundamental fields on Wikipedia. Quark, electron, gluon, W and Z bosons, etc. all have one article treating particle and field. The only exception I know of is photon and electromagnetic field, but that is mostly because the latter focuses on the classical regime. Note that this is also inline with the usage of "higgs boson" in the literature, which can either refer to the particle of the field.TR 10:34, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Current status
It would appear that CERN has published (today) an article stating that H --> τ τ decay has been observed.

As I am not an expert on the subject, as I'm sure some editors are, I thought it might be a better idea to have someone else confirm the validity of the article before it is added.

Article: http://www.quantumdiaries.org/2013/12/06/one-giant-leap-for-the-higgs-boson/

Blahpy (talk) 04:11, 7 December 2013 (UTC)


 * The article does appear to be valid, here and here you find the latest results on H->tautau from ATLAS and CMS, respectively. Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 20:01, 7 December 2013 (UTC)


 * As per today (2014-01-03), it is not possible to claim that what was recently observed at CERN is indeed the Higgs boson. It can also be another unknown particle, or even an already known particle in an excited state (which in itself would be of great interest). Actually the LHC has not the possibility to prove that what was observed is really the Higgs boson. The reason is that, to acertain that it is the Higgs boson, one must obtain evidences of decays of one Higgs boson into 2 or 3 other Higgs bosons. These kind of desintegration of a single Higgs may possibly occur at LHC, but with a very very small probability (of 3 order of magnitude less than the dominant decay modes), and also the huge background noise (due to the complexity of proton collisions yielding complex jets of particles) make this observation practically impossible. That's precisely why in the main experiments (ATLAS and CMS) on the LHC accelerator, researchers did not even try to observe these kind of decays ( Atlas Collab. page 17). One must wait for the next generation of particle collider to obtain the experimental confirmation (most probably a linear collider, accelerating electrons and positrons, instead of protons like in the LHC). To begin with a partial and undirect proof one can try to measure the spin parameter of this newly observed particle, since the Higgs boson is supposed to be of spin 0 while other known fundamental particles are of spin 1 or 1/2. But the measurements of this parameter at LHC are not conclusive (see Spin Measurement in which the conclusion says that "The data favour the Standard Model quantum numbers of Jp=0", and indeed the previous graphics do not show a clear evidence of a spin value of 0, only a trend). Due to the complexity of the data analysis, it is not surprising that the CERN communication about this "discovery" was at the beginning very cautious, at least until the Nobel price was awarded, delegating somehow the communication to the ATLAS and CMS collaborations. But I think that the CERN director definitely made a mistake in claiming that the Higgs boson was discovered just after the Nobel price was announced, because it is simply not true (and if one looks today at CERN website, it is not claimed that the new particle discovered is proved to be the Higgs boson!!!). Unfortunately these contradictory statements may further discredit the enormous work carried out by the thousands of researchers on this research topic ...Fred1810 (talk) 22:07, 22 January 2014 (UTC)


 * While it is true that the ultimate confirmation will come from a measurement of the Higgs self-couplings, I'd say there's little doubt in the physics community that the particle discovered at the LHC is a (SM-like) Higgs boson. Have a look at page 4 of this link... Ptrslv72 (talk) 17:23, 4 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Sorry Ptrslv72 but I totally disagree. There is little doubt in the physics community "involved in this research", but I insist that there is NO scientific arguments to claim that the new particle is the Higgs Boson. You mention page 4 of a document of the Particle Data Group but you don't mention page 5, where the decay rates are filled only with the indication "seen" and no measured value (and no mention of course of a decay into 2 "Higgs bosons"). If a large part of the Physics community believes that the new particle is the Higgs boson, it remains a belief, this has nothing to do with science. It is not true to say that a measured spin of 0 would support that this particle is the Higgs (the pi0 is of spin 0 and is not the Higgs). It is not true to claim that because the measured mass is between 100 and 200 Gev then it must be the Higgs. The model does not provide an upper limit to the mass, the lower limit just comes from previous experiments excluding a mass below 100 GeV. It is not true to say that because it can decay info fermions as well as gauge bosons then it is the Higgs (this is the case for the Z0). Unfortunately, there are no more arguments given. What makes the Higgs different from other particles is the Higgs potential, and it has not been measured at all. What's more, could you find only one scientific publication of the 2 main collaborations (ATLAS and CMS) confirming explicitly in the text that the particle found is quite certainly the Higgs bosons? I would be interested to read that... Fred1810 (talk) 13:24, 15 April 2014 (UTC)


 * OK - here are some scientific arguments to clain its *the* SM Higgs boson (or *a* Higgs Boson if you like SUSY for example). It correctly couples to the masses: . The coupling scale factors for vector bosons / fermions are correct: . Other spin hypothesis can be rejected: while the SM prediction is confirmed (plot also shows how good 0- is rejected): . The experiments *do* call it the Higgs boson nowadays - exactly because of all the evidence (see  "This note presents an update of the measurements of the properties of the Higgs boson using the full run I collision data sample recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC for the channels). You won't find a lot of combined results *yet*, since the combination of 2 experiments is not tivial (correlated uncertainties need to be identified etc...) - but the experiments are working together to make such a combination. Finally: If its not the SM Higgs boson - it's at least a particle trying very hard to look like one ... --Fred Stober (talk)  — Preceding undated comment added 12:54, 15 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Fred, I don't find your arguments very convincing... Considering the dependency of the coupling to mass, since the accumulated statistics of potential Higgs boson is still small, the branching ratios are even not specified in the above pdf file proposed by Ptrslv72, and worse, for the coupling to tau and b it is simply written "possibly seen". So, when I see your graphics showing a linear fit between 2 groups of points, one group consisting of tau and b data, I'm a bit surprised that you can say that this graphics shows that the particle "correctly" couples to the mass... Same comment for the ratio of coupling to fermions and bosons, with such a small statistics you can of course apply formulas to compute confidence level limits, but for me they are meaningless (since one must keep in mind that we can only compute an estimation of confidence level limit, and nothing can tell us if the value is far or close to the value, and it's especially a problem with small statistics of data). You say that other spin values than 0 are rejected, but the sentence in the conclusion of the ATLAS "official" publication is "the data favour a spin quantum number of 0" and nothing more (same problem with the confidence level limits..). Your arguments for the parity is interesting: you compare a measured value (with no error bars), compared to Monte Carlo simulations, and you find this to be a valueable proof for the parity measurement? I cannot follow you on this also... When you say that ATLAS calls the particle the "Higgs boson", it's in a conference, it's not what I call an official scientific publication saying explicitely "the particle found is very likely to be the Higgs boson"... The only way to assert that we have found the Higgs boson is to ensure its field may be responsible for a spontaneous symmetry breaking phenomenon, and it requires the measurement of the self couplings to show this, but they are not yet measured. Fred1810 (talk) 00:30, 16 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Fred1810: as you can read in several policy guidelines, e.g. WP:NOT and WP:NOR, this is not the right place to decide whether the confidence of the particle-physics community that the particle discovered at the LHC is indeed a Higgs boson is misplaced or not. Since it is a fact - of which you have been given several examples - that the physicists (not to mention the press at large) call the new particle a Higgs boson, the Wikipedia article should reflect just that. If the consensus on this issue evolves, the Wikipedia article will change accordingly. As to your comment about the decay rates in the PDG, I wonder what you were thinking: there cannot be an entry for "a  decay into 2 Higgs bosons", unless you consider BSM models with an extended Higgs sector. Indeed, a real Higgs boson cannot decay into two real Higgs bosons with the same mass, as this would violate energy conservation.  Evidence for the Higgs self-coupling could come from the detection of Higgs pair production, which receives contributions from diagrams in which a virtual Higgs boson splits into two real Higgs bosons (unfortunately, this contribution interferes with others that do not involve the Higgs self-coupling, therefore it will be far from trivial to extract the self-coupling even after a measurement of the pair-production rate). Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 15:16, 16 April 2014 (UTC)


 * PtrSlv72, I agree that the self couplings occur when one is off shell and if their measurement were to be specified in the Particle Data Booklet it would fall may be in another section. I perfectly know that these couplings are quite difficult to measure, that's exactly what I said earlier that it's even almost impossible at the LHC. But measuring at least the triple Higgs coupling and certify that it is not 0 is mandatory to say "I confirm this is a Higgs boson". This is simply a scientific fact. And since you mention the policy guidelines, they insist on the reliability of the content. But when I hear or read the "Physics community" saying that the new particle found at CERN is the Higgs boson, but I cannot find this same statement in official scientific publications of ATLAS and CMS collaboration, I may question the reliability of the article on that point (that point only). You can also refer to section "ambiguous first sentence" in this discussion, I'm not alone to have noticed this problem. I know on my side that these collaborations do not have the proof that they have found the Higgs boson and I just tried to give my arguments for this. If you think that the "Physics community" is right to consider that it's impossible that the new particle can be a new scalar particle unrelated to a symmetry breaking phenomemon, up to you! But remember that just before Peter Higgs published his model in 1964, the "Physics community" widely believed that the strong force was due to the exchange of some mesons...Fred1810 (talk) 00:16, 17 April 2014 (UTC)


 * This is a published paper by the ATLAS collaboration, and it's not even a very new one (it was posted on the arXiv on 4 July 2013, the first birthday of the Higgs). The conclusions read:
 * Data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider in 2011 and 2012, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of up to 25 fb−1, at Sqrt[s]=7 TeV and Sqrt[s]=8 TeV, have been analysed to determine several properties of the recently discovered Higgs boson using the H→γγ, H→ZZ⁎→4ℓ and H→WW⁎→ℓνℓν decay modes. The reported results include measurements of the mass and signal strength, evidence for production through vector-boson fusion, and constraints on couplings to bosons and fermions as well as on anomalous contributions to loop-induced processes. The precision exceeds previously published results in several cases. All measurements are consistent with expectations for the Standard Model Higgs boson.
 * It seems to me that they were stating quite unambiguously that the particle discovered at the LHC is a Higgs boson, and the issue now is to determine whether or not it behaves exactly as predicted by the SM. Your reasons for disagreeing with those conclusions are fully respectable, but, once again, a Wikipedia talk page is not the right place to challenge the general consensus on a topic. Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 23:57, 16 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the reference! However you can notice that the sentence "properties of the recently discovered Higgs boson" refers to what you call the common consensus, but it is very very far from "We, the ATLAS/CMS collaboration(s), state that the results our analysis confirm that the newly discovered particle is responsible for a mechanism that explains the non-vanishing mass of the W and Z bosons, and therefore can be called a Higgs boson" (or something like this, that I've not seen anywhere yet...). In the sentence you mentioned there is indeed no commitment of the collaboration, and if you question them on this they could answer "ok, we just decided to call Higgs boson the new particle because it's compatible with such a particle, and after all it's just a name..." Fred1810 (talk) 09:50, 17 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Note: There's one more paper of CMS about that topic. -- MichaelSchoenitzer (talk) 10:22, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Announcement of discovery
This revert to The Higgs boson or Higgs particle is an elementary particle initially theorised in 1964, whose discovery was announced at CERN on 4 July 2012 does not accurately reflect what was reported at the time. What was reported at that time was the discovery of a new boson, not of the Higgs boson; it was only considerably later that it was accepted to be a Higgs boson. It is also still not the Higgs boson. The current wording is misleading in this regard. Also, the mention of the report of the discovery does not belong in the first sentence; an outline giving a sense of what the particle is should precede it. —Quondum 18:41, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I hadn't scanned the above, but I see the essence of what I've said was being discussed above. Unfortunately the topic seems to have gone quiet. —Quondum 04:00, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't like the second sentence now. "Its main relevance is that it is the smallest possible excitation of the Higgs field" - this is the same for all particle types with their corresponding fields, but no one would write "the main relevance of an electron is being the smallest possible excitation of the electron field". Suggestion: just "it is the smallest [...]". --mfb (talk) 13:05, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
 * The thing is that for most fields/particles the particle excitation is at least as relevant (if not more so) as the corresponding field. For leptons and quarks all the interesting physics has to do with the particle excitations. For the Higgs things are different. The most relevant thing about the Higgs is the ground state of the field. The particle excitations do not normally occur in nature. The main reason that people are interested in the particle excitation is that it confirms the existence of the Higgs ground state.TR 15:27, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Relevant to what? Our current perspective from this position in history might have us be interested in some particular aspects right now, but a statement like " "Its main relevance is..." is still POV, especially when it is not stated what the relevance is to. And a statement such as that "The particle excitations do not normally occur in nature" does not hold – there are other particles with similarly short lifetimes that "do not occur in nature", including the W and Z bosons. They all do occur in nature, just not abundantly on Earth in non-virtual form. —Quondum 15:52, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Higgs bosons don't even occur abundantly in virtual form. Exchange of virtual Higgs bosons does not significantly contribute to any common physical process.
 * Stressing that the Higgs boson is different from other particles in this way is (IMHO) important for the lede of this article, as this difference is an important source of confusion. The lede needs to quickly establish what sets this particle apart from other particles and what it does for physics in the world around us. The truthful answer to the last bit is practically nothing. Most physical processes wouldn't care less of Higgs boson excitations never occurred. What impacts physics (in a very big way) is the existence of the Higgs field ground state that breaks electroweak symmetry.TR 16:09, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
 * And if not by interaction with the Higgs field, how does the Higgs field affect anything? Do fundamental particles not gain mass by such interaction? —Quondum 16:30, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
 * You cannot describe interaction with the Higgs ground state as exchange of (virtual) Higgs particles. Put differently this interaction does not involve Higgs bosons, at all.TR 21:06, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm completely out of my depth here, but I think I can be excused for thinking that the many Feynman diagrams that include interaction with the Higgs boson suggest that the Higgs field bosons (whether virtual or otherwise). It also leaves the question of how the Higgs does affect the Standard Model, if it is not via interactions, since in general, interactions with a field are with virtual particles. —Quondum 23:39, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Feynman diagrams containing Higgs bosons are all heavily suppressed due to the Higgs mass, measuring their effects was a major tour de force from LEP. The standard model is effect by the Higgs field because it is described perturbatively around the Higgs vacuum. Because the vacuum state has a non-zero expectation value, all interaction with the Higgs field introduce extra terms in the SM Lagrangian, which e.g. act as mass terms for the other particles. This description does not involve virtual particles (which by definition are deviations from the ground state) in anyway.TR 08:40, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
 * The top quark also rarely influences physics processes - it does appear as virtual particle in various loops, but those processes are not relevant outside accelerators (any maybe neutron stars) either. Can we agree on "it is the smallest [...]"? --mfb (talk) 23:42, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, but the top ground state influences nothing, hence by default the top particle excitations are much more relevant than the top ground state. Note, that (as mentioned in the section above) I am not entirely happy about the phrasing of the piece I inserted. However, in the phrasing there needs to be something that signals to the reader why (and that!) the majority of the first paragraph is talking about the Higgs ground state rather than the Higgs particle (after which the page is titled). I feel that if the article would simply read "it is the smallest...", many readers would be left confused by the apparent change of topic. Alternative phrasings that would have the same effect are very welcome.TR 08:21, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Also note that the statement that people care about the Higgs boson only because of its relation to Higgs field can (and is) sourced to multiple sources.TR 08:27, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Ambiguous first sentence
The first sentence reads "The Higgs boson [...], whose discovery was announced [...], and confirmed likely to be a Higgs boson in March 2013." How can it be discovered and not discovered at the same time? Should it say that some *new particle* was discovered that is likely to be the Higgs boson but we just don't know yet? rkaup (talk) 05:03, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
 * You're right. This is exactly the point. A new particle is discovered that can be the Higgs boson but we cannot certify that it is really the Higgs Boson without the help of the next generation of particle accelarators. They are needed to measure the "self couplings" of this particle, that is to say the possibility of a single "Higgs boson" to decay into 2 or more similar particles, which is the main characteristic of the Higgs boson that is not shared by other particles. Fred1810 (talk) 20:55, 14 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I fully agree that the first sentence is confusing. The editor who made it this way wanted to stress that the discovery of a new particle - widely assumed to be the Higgs boson - was announced on July 4, 2012, but it was only on March 2013 that the measurement of some properties of this new particle confirmed that it does indeed behave as expected from the Higgs boson. In my opinion, now that it is accepted that the particle discovered in 2012 is a Higgs boson, and a Nobel prize has been awarded to Englert and Higgs for its prediction, we don't need to make the opening sentence so heavy. We can just write that the particle was discovered on July 4 2012, then the timeline of the various announcements is described in full detail in the second paragraph of the lead. Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 17:07, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I would go as far as to say that the discovery and/or announcement do not need to be mentioned in the first paragraph at all. In terms of modern news cycles this is now ancient history. We should probably go towards a lede that is more inline with that of other fundamental particles and leave the date of discovery etc. to a later paragraph summarizing the history. (see e.g. electron or quark both FAs). This also leaves more room for nuance regarding the current status.
 * The first paragraph should focus on answering the questions: "What is a Higgs boson?" and "Why is it important?" in an so accessible way possible.TR 09:18, 17 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Fine for me. Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 13:23, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

suggestion for first to paragraphs
Procrastinating on writing an actual paper I had a go at the first two paragraphs:
 * The Higgs boson or Higgs particle is an elementary particle in the Standard Model of Partical physics. Its main relevance is that it is the smallest possible excitation of the Higgs field; A field that unlike the more familiar electromagnetic field cannot be "turned off", but instead takes a constant value almost everywhere. Its existence explains why some fundamental particles have mass when the symmetries controlling their interactions should require them to be massless, and why the weak force has a much shorter range than the electromagnetic force.


 * Despite being present everywhere, the existence of the Higgs field has been very hard to confirm, because it is extremely hard to create excitations (i.e. Higgs particles). The search for this elusive particle has taken more than 40 years and led to the construction of one of the world's most expensive and complex experimental facilities to date, the Large Hadron Collider, able to create Higgs bosons and other particles for observation and study. On 4 July 2012, it was announced that a previously unknown particle with a mass between 125 and $127 GeV/c2$ (134.2 and 136.3 amu) had been detected; physicists suspected at the time that it was the Higgs boson. By March 2013, the particle had been proven to behave, interact and decay in many of the ways predicted by the Standard Model, and was also tentatively confirmed to have positive parity and zero spin, two fundamental attributes of a Higgs boson. This appears to be the first elementary scalar particle discovered in nature. More data is needed to know if the discovered particle exactly matches the predictions of the Standard Model, or whether, as predicted by some theories, multiple Higgs bosons exist.

Not entirely satisfied with the result though. So nice parts are that it tones down on all the Higgs hype that was a bit over present and make some attempt to give an idea what this Higgs field is. Maybe somebody can bend this in something useful?TR 12:09, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Could the first paragraph be changed to define or describe the physical qualities of the Higgs boson, as per the article for the other bosons? As it is now, the first 3 paragraphs are able the history of the search for it, which I feel should come after its definition. Ashmoo (talk) 16:00, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Problems with the first paragraphs
The opening paragraphs need a lot of clarification, restructuring, factual accuracy clean-up, and probably a complete rewrite. Here's an line-by-line discussion of problems. "The Higgs boson or Higgs particle is an elementary particle in the Standard Model of Particle physics." This is misleading. The standard model does predict a higgs boson which is consistent with the boson that was discovered in 2012, but this is not the definition or the limit to higgs bosons. There are ideas that should be separated: the standard model higgs boson, and higgs bosons in general. The first is a particle of the standard model and the simplest instance of a higgs boson. The second is a feature of a more general class of possible higgs mechanisms. For instance, if supersymmetry is found we should expect a total of five higgs particles.

"Its main relevance is that it is the smallest possible excitation of the Higgs field" The second sentence should be reserved for further defining the higgs, rather than entering into a strange discussion of it’s “relevance” to some unstated topic as if this were a justification of funding. This appears to be an attempt to introduce its importance, which cannot be understated since it is the centerpiece of the standard model. It’s importance should be listed as follows:
 * First, the higgs boson discovery is proof that the higgs mechanism exists in nature.
 * Second, the higgs mechanism endows mass to all other known fundamental particles. This happens to be necessary for life in the universe to be possible.
 * Third, the evidence of the higgs mechanism resolves a long standing mystery of how the W and Z bosons acquire large masses when Electroweak symmetry in the absence of the higgs mechanism would require them to be massless.
 * Fourth, the discovery completes the standard model by resolves major structural inconsistencies, including the case of WW scattering where the standard model in the absence of a higgs mechanism predicts nonsensical probabilities greater than 1.
 * Fifth, the precise value of the higgs mass has major implications for the stability of the vacuum and the ultimate future of the universe.
 * Sixth, It’s the first fundamental scalar in nature.
 * Seventh, it’s a gateway to detecting other particles beyond the standard model.
 * Eighth, the higgs discovery brings the Hierarchy problem into clear focus as a mystery of the origin of the higgs boson mass. This sets the Hierarchy problem as one of the most important unsolved mysteries in physics.


 * Most of these points are factually inaccurate.
 * The Higgs boson is not proof that the Higgs mechanism exists in Nature. That has been beyond doubt since essentially LEP. The Higgs boson (once its properties are established) is proof that the Higgs field exists and causes the Higgs mechanism.
 * The Higgs mechanism is only responsible for electroweak symmetry breaking. Mass generation for fermions is a different mechanism (that is also made possible by the existence of a non-zero Higgs field).
 * The standard model would break electroweak symmetry with or without the Higgs (due to the occurrence of mesons). However, W and Z would be a lot lighter without a Higgs field.
 * The sixth point is already mentioned in the lede.
 * The seventh point is essentially BS.
 * TR 08:56, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

"– a field that unlike the more familiar electromagnetic field cannot be 'turned off'," This is totally confusing without an explanation of what “turned off” means and makes asserts that the reader has some sort of familiarity with electromagnetism. It also misses the grand picture of a field with non-zero value filling all of space.
 * The second part of that sentence clarifies what "cannot be turned off" means. Electric and magnetic fields are by far the most likely examples of fields that people will have encountered. Without such a comparison we will lose most of the audience the moment we start talking about fields.TR 09:15, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

"but instead takes a constant value almost everywhere." Why almost? It’s everywhere within our observable universe. This is hinting the higgs field’s non-zero VEV but never actually stating it. The non-zero VEV is only parenthetically mentioned once deep within the technical discussion even though this is the central feature of the higgs mechanism and evidence for it is a profound revelation discovery about the nature of the vacuum we inhabit. A main goal of the article should be communicating that we are swimming in a universal higgs field that has a non-zero value even in empty space, and that this field is required for life to be possible. Also, this is now a run-on sentence.
 * "Almost" because it is not constant whenever a Higgs boson is created. (Which happens all the time, be it for very short periods.) Also, this is about as accessible an explanation of what "having a non zero VEV", means.TR 09:08, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

"The presence of this field explains why some fundamental particles have mass while the symmetries controlling their interactions should require them to be massless" This should explicitly mention the W and Z bosons rather than be vague. Shockingly, no where in the first paragraph on the higgs boson is there mention that the higgs endows mass to all other fundamental particles.
 * In my opinion "some" should simply be dropped from that sentence. (The Higgs field is responsible for the masses of all fundamental particles.) However, I have been overruled on that point in the past. I think the argument was that the sentence could then suggest that all fundamental particles have mass.TR 09:08, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Also, note that the clause following this sentence gives an explicit statement of what it means that the W and Z bosons have mass. (Namely that the weak force has a short range.) That statement is a lot more accessible (and physically meaningful) then the rather abstract statement that W and Z have mass.TR 09:19, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

"Despite being present everywhere, the existence of the Higgs field has been very hard to confirm, because it is extremely hard to create excitations (i.e. Higgs particles)." The explanation here is false. If that were the difficulty, LEP or the Tevatron would have discovered the higgs decades ago. The main difficulty is that almost all the higgs decay products look nearly identical to background noise products of particle collisions produced billions of times more often than the higgs.
 * I think "is hard to excite" is a pretty good summary of "is produced billions of times less than other particles in similar collisions.TR 09:27, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

"The search for this elusive particle has taken more than 40 years and led to the construction of one of the world's most expensive and complex experimental facilities to date, the Large Hadron Collider,[8] able to create Higgs bosons and other particles for observation and study." First, although expense is a concern it’s pretty impolite to the experimentalists to highlight the project cost first, especially while presenting such a poor explanation of the motivation. It gives the reader the impression that scientists are throwing away huge amounts of their tax money for some trivial esoteric reason. A better statement would be "..the world's largest, most ambitious, most complex, and most expensive experimental facilities...". Second, the LHC's defining feature is not that it’s able to create higgs bosons, but to discover the higgs boson anywhere within the allowed mass range imposed by precision electroweak measurements done at LEP. Both LEP and the Tevatron created higgs bosons but were unable to discover them. (Also, the LHC's ability to create other particles is a little off topic.) A better statement would be "the Large Hadron Collider, able to create Higgs bosons in sufficient quantity to be discovered and studied."

"By March 2013, the particle had been proven to behave, interact and decay in many of the ways predicted by the Standard Model, and was also tentatively confirmed to have positive parity and zero spin,[1] two fundamental attributes of a Higgs boson." It should be emphasized here that we have not proven it to be the standard model higgs boson, only that it is a higgs boson consistent with the standard model higgs boson. We absolutely have not proven that it is the standard model higgs boson not something subtly different. In particular, it is not at all clear that the higgs boson discovered decays precisely the rate predicted by the standard model. Pulu (talk) 07:27, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, and that emphasis is given just two sentences later in the same paragraph.TR 09:27, 16 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Such a proof is impossible. All known particles could be something slightly different, but we still call the muon "muon" and not "muon-like particle". And its decay channels are still under investigation as well because they could deviate from the SM. There is no fundamental difference, the measurements for the Higgs are just less precise (in comparison to the muon, by orders of magnitude). The "Higgs-like" particle is so Higgs-like everyone treats it as the SM particle now. And there won't be a magic moment where suddenly measurements will say "it is exactly the Higgs!" - just more and more precise confirmations (or new physics). --mfb (talk) 21:32, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Are scientists certain?
So, I read in the article: As of 2013, scientists are virtually certain that they have proved the Higgs boson exists. I cannot find this in sources, so I tried to put a citation need. While editing, this notice appeared: ''Read this before editing! 1) Be very careful not to suggest the discovery is finished. Do not say the Higgs boson has been definitively discovered or confirmed.'' I guess that at least one of the two statements should be corrected or at least modified. It is hard for me to grasp the difference between "virtually certain" and "definitively discovered". This is a matter of subtle philosophy; the latter makes sense for everyone (except solypsists, perhaps;) but the meaning of "virtually certain" is extremely vague. (By the way, I would bet that the particle is an Higgs boson, but I suspect that noone is virtually certain, so far)! Best.78.15.203.91 (talk) 20:19, 19 September 2014 (UTC)


 * My personal experience as particle physicist is not a reliable source, but experimental physicists working on that consider the SM-like Higgs boson as found beyond reasonable doubt (there is never 100% certainty). Now the research is about "is there something else? More Higgs-like particles, or something that gives the SM Higgs boson a deviation from the SM prediction?" The official statements are more careful - the media always exaggerate news, that has to be compensated somehow. --mfb (talk) 12:34, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Statement of the Higgs Mass
I am reverting a change made to the article where the best estimates of the higgs boson mass from ATLAS and CMS were replaced by a single out of date figure listed by the PDG. The higgs mass should be kept up to date and as precise as possible since many theories are extremely sensitive to the exact value of the mass. The higgs mass is known from experiments done at the ATLAS and CMS experiments, so their latest results should be considered the most authoritative. It may be appropriate to list a single mass instead of two if and when a paper is published which combines the measured masses into a single mass with better resolution than either estimate individually. The mass listed on the 2014 PDG does not achieve this since the mass listed uses CMS and ATLAS masses published in 2013--which excludes a large section of the data (only 12 fb^-1 of 8 TeV collisions from CMS) and do not use the most modern methods for reducing the systematic uncertainty. Pulu (talk) 16:44, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I disagree. Having two different masses in the infobox of an encyclopedia is confusing for the general reader, who will be dumbfounded how a single particle can have two different masses. (or worse can be led to believe that two particles have been found). Your arguments for keeping the mass "as up to date as possible" are irrelevant for an encyclopedia. Furthermore, the PDG value has the advantage of coming from a secondary source. It has long been a best practice to list the PDG values for particle data, even if more recent results are available, precisely for that reason. TR 20:59, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I can understand the desire to have a simple statement of the higgs mass in the infobox. Unfortunately, this particle is quite new and the state of human knowledge currently consists of two separate estimates. The PDG, which usually serves as a grand repository of establish knowledge, is unable to reflect the current, rapidly changing state of knowledge as rapidly the experiments' publications and subsequently wikipedia, so this best practice will fail the readers. (As for keeping wikipedia up to date, that is absolutely relevant, extremely important, and most of the point of having a digital encyclopedia.) There is also physics motivation for listing as precise a value of the higgs mass as possible. Many model parameters are exponentially dependent on the higgs mass, while only logarithmically dependent on the masses of every other particle in nature. One of the central goals of particle physics is to establish the higgs boson mass as precisely as possible, and the article should reflect this. If we are to list a single value, I agree that we should list the PDG value. However this should be accompanied by a listing of the true state of knowledge in the article. Therefore I propose we change the infobox back to the PDG value for simplicity and add discussion within the article in which this and future up-to-date estimates of the higgs boson mass are presented for those interested. Is this agreeable? Pulu (talk) 04:07, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, that we would be a suitable approach IMHO.TR 08:40, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Per WP:CALC, I've added an up-to-date combined CMS-ATLAS estimate; it is 125.17 ±0.26 (stat) $-.15 +.16$ (sys). Someone should check the calculations, since the asymmetry in the CMS error margins implies a skewed confidence distribution, and I'm not sure the formulas for combining heteroskedastic sets of estimates are the same when that's the case. Neon  Merlin  12:26, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
 * How did you get the ±0.26? Combining the CMS value with this uncertainty with the ATLAS value with a comparable uncertainty should lead to a smaller value. The combination of the systematic uncertainty is non-trivial as those can be correlated. --mfb (talk) 12:46, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Agree with Mfb. The combination of ATLAS and CMS results is a non-trivial task that requires understanding of how the systematic uncertainties are correlated. It has to be performed by the collaborations and definitely does not fall under WP:CALC, which refers to routine calculations. Cheers Ptrslv72 (talk) 23:04, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I removed the homemade combination, but I did not act on Pulu's last suggestion (which FWIW I find good). On a more general note, the article is hypertrophic, and somebody (not me) should undertake the heroic task of slimming it down. To start with, I would get rid of the useless "technical aspects" section at the end, but there is much more fat to cut... Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 23:18, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Quantum triviality
The following sentence was add to the article
 * "There are also issues of Quantum triviality, which suggests that it may not be possible to create a consistent quantum field theory involving elementary scalar particles."

Obviuously, a statement like that needs a reference. Moreover, my recollection of the subject is a bit hazy, but doesn't quantum triviality put an upper bound on the Higgs mass? Wasn't it bounds like that that allowed the statement that the LHC would either find the Higgs or prove its non-existence?TR 14:56, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

I just saw this - important to the article?
I just found this in the news - should it be in the article, or at least an external link? Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 00:32, 9 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Too early, I'd say. Yet I think it should be considered as a caution to those editors who have chosen to edit the article to strongly suggesting that the (or even a) Higgs particle has been definitively found, based on current sources. When (and if) more solid information emerges, we can include information about the possibility that the particle observed at CERN is not a Higgs. —Quondum 15:07, 9 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Yea, every article I have read seems to be written by amateurs. Most of them have very poor grammar and make some false statements (i.e. one articles states that it is the CERN scientists which are saying they were wrong).  Approach these articles with skepticism.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2607:FCC8:A6C1:D000:B0A7:DAD7:160:5179 (talk) 04:39, 10 November 2014 (UTC)


 * The first sentence alone contains several inaccuracies. Anyway, due to the nature of the scientific method, there will always be an infinite number of alternative hypotheses that have not been ruled out by experiment. Come practice is to assume the simplest hypothesis compatible with observation, until it is ruled out by new observations. In this case, the simplest hypothesis is that the found particle is the SM Higgs. It still could be something more complicated (Supersymmetric Higgs, a composite Higgslike particle etc.). The lede already comments on this possibility.


 * Note, that this situation is not much different than that of other supposedly fundamental particles. E.g. not all preon models have been completely ruled out, however or quark article refers to quarks as fundamental particles. This in accordance with WP:CRYSTAL BALL.TR 15:34, 10 November 2014 (UTC)


 * This is a weird story, but it appears to be more about media sensationalism than physics. The article in question was posted on the arXiv more than one year ago and, at the time of writing this, it has collected 9 citations. The article itself is nothing special, it just argues that a class of Technicolor models can accommodate the existence of a particle with properties compatible with those of the 125-GeV scalar observed at the LHC. After what I would consider an unusually long review process - perhaps some referee was not convinced - it appears that the paper has been accepted by Physical Review D. Then on November 7, in another somewhat unusual step, the University of Southern Denmark, home to one of the authors, put out a press release about the publication of the article. It is this press release, with the suggestive title "Maybe it wasn't the Higgs particle after all", that was picked up by many science blogs in the past few days. In summary, this is just one of the dozens (or hundreds) of recent articles that proposed a BSM interpretation of the LHC findings, and not a particularly famous one if judged by citations. For some reason, the home institution of one of the authors decided to push the story, and it became viral on the blogosphere. I guess we can wait for the dust to settle before considering changes to the article. Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 11:40, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

CERN Scientists Report Discovery is Not Higgs Boson [ http://www.dumb-out.net/cern-scientists-report-discovery-higgs-boson/11406 ]
Time to gut out all the hype and nonsense in this article. They have NOT found the Higgs boson. 50.141.70.3 (talk) 19:10, 8 November 2014 (UTC)


 * We go by scientific consensus, not a single paper, also that article is not accurate. Bhny (talk) 19:12, 11 November 2014 (UTC)


 * That is the personal opinion of Mads Toudal Frandsen, and apparently no one follows him. He also does not have a model that can explain all the measurements done so far (or he did not share it, which is the same thing). --mfb (talk) 00:24, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Needs a criticism section
I've been reading article after article on notable scientists with PhDs who say the there's a good chance they did not find the Higgs boson. One of many examples is a team of physicists from Denmark, Belgium, and the UK question the CERN finding. One possibility is that its light techni-quarks. Another criticism is that the CERN data analysis team is not open to the public. 72.25.65.244 (talk) 18:50, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
 * But this article is about the Higgs boson. How do you criticise a particle? CodeCat (talk) 18:53, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
 * What?? The page needs a section that questions the finding of the Higgs boson? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.25.65.244 (talk) 18:58, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
 * It does not. A new particle has been found beyond reasonable doubt and this particle is called "Higgs boson" now. Yes there are models that might somehow be able to reproduce the observed mass, couplings, decay channels, limits on the width, differential cross-sections, spin and so on (I didn't see any model so far that takes into account all those measurements!) if you tune it enough to look exactly like the Standard Model Higgs boson without anything else. So what? More tests will most likely rule them out or make them pointless. --mfb (talk) 23:53, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Physists around the world with PhDs at universities disagree with you. I'm not spending another second on this. Enjoy your Wikipedia. 72.25.65.244 (talk) 03:18, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

The lead
Wow. Isn't the lead a bit long? That should be reduced significantly to become a real "lead". As it now stands, it seems to extend further into material for the article proper. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 13:53, 20 February 2015 (UTC)


 * In fact, I find the whole article quite bloated. It is the result of many layers of additions over a period where the topic attracted a lot of attention. Some brave editor with time on his/her hands (= not me) should undertake the heroic task of slimming it down (I would start from the IMHO useless section on mathematical details at the end, but there is a lot more fat to cut). Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 14:58, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Rejection of a section regarding experimental evidences of the Higgs potential
I recently wrote a section mentioning the fact that the LHC experiments has not found any evidence of the Higgs potential yet. The second point denies the possibility to find such evidence at the LHC. A reference is given for that, which actualy gives credits to this possibility, but reading the assumptions made in this reference makes it clear that the LHC is far from being able to find such evidence. This section was removed 3 times by 3 different authors. The second one was the only one to give an argument (that the referenced article concludes with the possibility to measure the Higgs potential at the LHC), and I consequently amended the formulation of my section. It was nevertheless again removed. I would like that these authors justify here this removal. My section just states some scientific facts about the Higgs boson that are omitted in the article. As for me the text is fully compliant with the wikipedia guidelines. Below is my latest version (in which I still found a few orthographic mistakes that need to be fixed)


 * The first problem with your section is that it reads like an essay to promote a fringe point of view, namely that it will not be possible to claim that the 125-GeV particle is some kind of Higgs boson until the self-couplings are measured. That this is indeed a fringe point of view in the physics community can be easily concluded from a look at the hundreds of ATLAS and CMS (and theory) papers that refer to the 125-GeV particle as "the Higgs boson", and from the fact that the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences recently bothered to award a Nobel prize for the Higgs (plus Migdal-Poliakov-Anderson-Brout-Englert-Guralnik-Hagen-Kibble-Weinberg-'t Hooft, to avoid criticism ;-) mechanism. As I already pointed out to you in an earlier discussion, a Wikipedia article is not the proper place for an editor to challenge the general consensus on a topic. If there is some notable dissent to the general consensus it should of course be documented, but this leads us to the second problem with your section, i.e. the sourcing. It might be acceptable to write "Notable physicist XYZ states that the particle cannot yet be identified with the Higgs boson (put references here)", if it can be shown that XYZ is representative of a significant minority, and if the references are to reliable sources. In contrast, listing a series of (mostly unsourced) arguments that lead the anonymous editor Fred1810 to conclude that the particle cannot yet be identified with the Higgs boson amounts to original research (see the corresponding Wikipedia guideline, in particular the bit on synthesis).
 * Having said this, I personally would have nothing against including somewhere in the article a (short) paragraph about the importance of measuring the Higgs self-couplings and the prospects of doing so at the LHC. Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 19:35, 26 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Ptrslv72, your arguments about sources are ridiculous: regarding the fact that the self couplings were not measured at the LHC, this fact can be checked by looking at the publication lists of ATLAS and CMS, for which I gave a reference. All this long list of papers do not directly concern the Higgs boson identification but it is easy for any researcher who knows a little bit this topic to identify in this list the papers containing results on Higgs properties (there are not so many), and to check that self coulplings are not measured so far. Regarding the possibility to measure them at the LHC, I choose only one paper because it is one of the most recent ones (this paper refers to a large part of the well-known litterature on this subject). Finally and this is the most important point, I have not included a reference to the statement that identifying a particle as a Higgs boson does require one to ensure that the Higgs potential exists, for one good reason: ANY researcher who knows the theory knows that (not only researcher XYZ) AND this theory is briefly summarized in the theoretical part of the wikipedia article itself, which I refers to if you read carefully my text. But the importance of this was not explicited in the article, and cannot be seen by the reader who is not a specialist of the subject. Hiding yourself behind a general consensus is not a valid argument at all. Also I never denied the consensus saying that the new particle is compatible with a Higgs boson. My text has nothing to do neither with an original research nor with a personal Point Of View. It's just plain facts, that apparently you don't want to appear on a wikipedia page....Fred1810 (talk) 00:06, 27 January 2015 (UTC)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.41.131.154 (talk)


 * Seriously, try to better understand what Wikipedia is and what it is not. Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 00:19, 27 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Concerning the self-coupling: yes, it has not been measured yet. No one questioned that. It is expected that the HL-LHC will allow to see it, with the expected precision still under study. You seem to claim this is necessary to call the particle "Higgs boson" - without a reliable source showing some support of that opinion in the scientific community, this is just your personal opinion.
 * There are many measurements of spin, decay width, differential cross-sections, couplings to other particles and so on. The mass is in agreement with electroweak precision measurements as well, this is not a trick. There is no ultimate measurement "proving" something, you can always construct a model where a particle is extremely similar to the Higgs boson and give it a different name. There is a point where deviations from the SM Higgs boson predictions would be considered as additional things, modifying the properties of the discovered Higgs boson. There is broad consensus that this point has been reached. With the same arguments ("some properties have not been measured yet!") you could start discussions if the top quark is really the top quark. But Wikipedia is not the right place for that. --mfb (talk) 15:18, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Ptrslv72, I understand from your answer that you have no arguments to oppose against what follows:


 * 1) The statement that the existence of the Higgs potential is not prooved yet at LHC is true.
 * 2) I gave a list of references that allows anyone to check that it is true
 * 3) The statement that the determination of the existence of the Higgs potential at LHC will most probably require more than 10 times the amount of already collected data is true.
 * 4) I gave one reference that allows anyone to check that it is true
 * 5) The statement that the Higgs boson field was added to the theory because (and only because) of the effects of the Higgs potential is true.
 * 6) Anyone who knows a bit of this theory (including students) know that the previous statement is true (can be found in any textbook on the subject, and I guess mfb should read them!!!).
 * 7) this fact is reflected in the mathematical part of the wikipedia article but cannot be clear for the common reader
 * 8) My text explains only the above 3 statements and therefore cannot be considered as a personnal point of view
 * 9) My text do not discuss any original research
 * Consequently, I do not see in what you said any ground for the rejection of my contribution. (and I'm really interested to know what is the definition of a Higgs boson for mfb!!!)Fred1810 (talk) 17:21, 27 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I have my own work (on the Higgs boson, no less) to take care of, and no time to explain to an aggressive, single-topic newbie editor how Wikipedia works. Three different editors told you that your paragraph violates WP:NPOV and WP:OR, but rather than having a good read of those policies you prefer to believe that we want to suppress some inconvenient truth... Ptrslv72 (talk) 20:14, 27 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Ptrslv72, viewing your numerous contributions, it is clear that you have the time when you really want. But surprisingly now you have no more time? I'm sure that your work on the Higgs boson is much more important than mine of course.... Well, it is at least right that I'm a newbie on wikipedia.... Fortunately all editors do not share your taste for arguments from authority ( WP:Don%27t_revert_due_to_%22no_consensus%22 ), which is apparently for you a synonym for "Neutral" point of view.... But I'm not in a hurry and will wait to see if you have really something to oppose to my previous message in this talk... Fred1810 (talk) 00:47, 28 January 2015 (UTC)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.41.130.164 (talk)


 * I have already tried twice (in in our earlier discussion and in the first of my comments above) to explain patiently why you cannot use a Wikipedia article to prove a point, but - instead of trying to understand the core policies of Wikipedia - you called my arguments "ridiculous" and accused me of suppressing the facts. Then the editor Mfb tried to discuss the physics with you, only to be told to read a textbook. There are only so many times one can bang his/her head against a wall before concluding that it is an utter waste of time...


 * As I wrote above, your paragraph would have been acceptable if you had just stressed the importance of measuring the Higgs self-couplings and discussed the prospects for that measurement at the LHC. To support your statements, you could have cited academic papers such as the one by Baglio et al. or - even better for a Wikipedia article - some secondary source (e.g., a popularizing article in some reliable publication) that reported on those studies. The problem with your paragraph are the clumsy attempts at "debunking" various arguments that lead the physics community to believe that the 125-GeV particle is indeed some kind of Higgs boson (note: not necessarily the SM Higgs, and not even necessarily an elementary particle, see e.g. "little Higgs" or "strongly-interacting Higgs" models). That is where you drift from just stating facts to making your point, which appears to be that one should not call the new particle a Higgs boson until the self-couplings are measured. Why this is today a fringe point of view was explained to you by Mfb above and by another editor in the earlier discussion: to believe that the 125-GeV particle is not some kind of Higgs boson, one would have to accept that, for some reason, this non-Higgs particle mimics the behavior of the SM Higgs boson to a very good degree (see, e.g., this plot) while, at the same time, the field (or, more generally, the mechanism) that is really responsible for EW symmetry breaking manages to stay perfectly hidden at the energy scale accessible to the LHC. And even if it was agreed that this fringe point of view belongs in the Wikipedia article, it would not be appropriate for editor Fred1810 to just list his/her arguments for it. As (again) I wrote above, you should find some notable mention of that point of view in a reliable source. In the words of Jimmy Wales, from one of the core policies that you should have tried to better understand:


 * If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts;
 * If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;
 * If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong in Wikipedia regardless of whether it is true or not and regardless of whether you can prove it or not, except perhaps in some ancillary article.


 * Finally, let me briefly comment on your repeated statement that what identifies a Higgs boson is the "mexican hat" potential. In fact, what makes a Higgs boson is not this or that shape of the scalar potential. In multi-Higgs models (e.g., the THDM) the potential is more complicated than the "mexican hat" of the SM. On the other hand, you might very well add to the theory a gauge-singlet scalar with a "mexican-hat" potential and it still would not contribute to EWSB. What really characterizes a Higgs boson is a non-vanishing vacuum expectation value - due to whatever shape of the potential - that breaks the gauge symmetry. (It is indeed amusing to note that, of the three PRL papers from 1964, only one mentions explicitly a (generic) scalar potential, while for the others is enough to assume that the scalar field gets a vev somehow). From this point of view, the fact that the couplings of the new scalar to the known particles are proportional to their mass is already evidence of its "Higgs" nature, because it indicates that the scalar enters the Lagrangian in the combination (H+v), i.e., that it is associated to the mechanism of EW symmetry breaking that gives masses to those particles.


 * So, to summarize your "nine points" above: 1-4 are uncontroversial, although I would rephrase 1 and 3 as "the shape of the Higgs potential..."; 5 is questionable, at least in the way you seem to understand it; 6-9 denote a deep misunderstanding of the core policies of Wikipedia. Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 11:31, 28 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Ptrslv72, your first argument is that the measured couplings to matter or gauge bosons imply that the field of this new particle is responsible for a symmetry breaking phenomenon. This can be true only if you make some asumptions on a "reasonnable" form of the Lagrangian, and especially it assumes that the new particle is not composite. Otherwise you cannot prove that the coupling of the new scalar particle to a W or a Z0 implies that the lagrangian can be rewritten in terms of (v+H) like you said. Remember that for a long time, physicists believed that the strong force was due to some mesons exchanges... Therefore you cannot certify with the current experimental data at LHC that the new particle is responsible for the mass of the W and the Z0, which is the very first reason why a boson of Higgs-type was introduced in the Standard Model by Glashow Weinberg and Salam. In other words, even if the couplings of one of the newly discovered particle with other known particles are compatible with what is expected by the standard model, you cannot confirm that the field of this particle is involved in the breakdown process of the electroweak symmetry, and consequently that it can be called a Higgs boson. This is why point 5 is actually not questionable. Now, that the Higgs potential has a mexican hat shape or a more complex one is not relevant at all for the discussion. To be responsible for a spontaneous symmetry breaking phenomenon there must exists at least one "Higgs" self couplings of order higher than 2 (mass term). It may not be sufficient as you mentioned (I'm OK with that), but it is nevertheless a prerequisite. You consider that points 6 to 9 denote a misunderstanding of the wikipedia policy. I personnaly consider on the opposite that you have an extreme interpretation of the wikipedia policy on the present issue. You have reverted my changes like if you were the guardian of a temple. I think you should rather get inspired by the section "scientific impact" on the same wikipedia page, and also consider this part of the wikipedia policy: WP:Neutral_point_of_view/FAQ (you used the false argument of a personnal point of view to revert the changes). Finally, regarding your CMS plot, the fluctuations around the SM value are spread over a very large range (the meaning of the green band is not explicited, can guess it's a confidence level domain?) and I notice that 4 points over 5 are located on the limits of the band...). Error bars are also very large, which is not surprising since (as far as I know) the Higgs production at LHC did not exceed 200 or 300 events so far, that are then splitted among various decay channels for analysis...). But the interpretation of these experimental data has nothing to do with the present discussion actually.Fred1810 (talk) 10:18, 29 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Both collaborations had something like 500 thousand Higgs bosons so far, even the rare decay to diphotons (including all detection and reconstruction efficiencies) gave hundreds of events. The green band is 68% CL or +- 1 sigma, as always in experimental HEP results if nothing else is stated.
 * "I personnaly consider on the opposite that you have an extreme interpretation of the wikipedia policy" - the edit history of the article is strong evidence against this. --mfb (talk) 16:09, 29 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Well, it appears that yesterday I wasted another hour of my time... BTW, and only for the record: 1) a composite scalar responsible for EWSB could still be called a Higgs from the point of view of the effective theory valid at the EW scale; 2) Glashow was first (in 1961) to propose SU(2)xU(1) as the gauge group of the EW interactions, but he did not introduce a Higgs boson; 3) three different editors reverted your changes and they all referred to the core Wikipedia guidelines that you refuse to understand. Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 22:10, 29 January 2015 (UTC)


 * "... a composite scalar responsible for the EWSB...." But on which criteria can you ensure that a scalar particle (possibly composite) is responsible for the EWSB? Just because it couples to electroweak bosons? That you can build an effective lagrangian in which the composite scalar field can be translated by a constant value to "absorb" the mass of gauge bosons does not mean that any such effective lagrangian in any gauge-theoretic model must follow this rule. But I would be really interested in a proof of this if you have one... Regarding the Wikipedia policies, I rather think that you and mfb wrongly quoted a violation of them because of a lack of neutrality, that makes you position yoursleves as a form of authority on this wikipedia article. You tried to find flaws in the content of my text, with no success, and what I said is easily verifiable (only by specialists for some of them, but exactly like many other statements already appearing in the wikipedia page). BTW Ptrlsv72, I don't think you've wasted your time in this discussion...Fred1810 (talk) 13:48, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Reliability of the proof of the discovery
The most important difference between the Higgs boson field and the field of other kind of known particles is the existence of the Higgs Potential, with a "mexican hat" shape, as explained in the mathematical part of this article. This potential is responsible for the spontaneous symmetry breakdown that may have occured in the early universe. In the prefered scenario discussed by physicists, all particles (matter particles and interaction particles, which are also called gauge bosons) may have had a zero mass at the time of the big bang. When the symmetry breakdown occured, matter particles and 3 of the gauge bosons (electroweak bosons) may have spontaneously acquired a mass. Therefore the Higgs potential is really fundamental for this particle and makes it really different from other particles. However, the LHC energy is not sufficient to measure the coefficients appearing in this potential today. It may be possible only with much more collected data (3000 fb-1 against possibly 100 fb-1 expected by end of 2015 for the total integrated luminosity). In other word, the existence of the Higgs potential has not been proven to exists at the LHC yet, and it is therefore not possible to confirm that the newly discovered particle is not a new particle unrelated to the Higgs phenomenon. The particle discovered in 2012 at CERN is called the Higgs bosons because some of its parameters are compatible with the theory of the Higgs boson:


 * Its spin, if confirmed to be 0, corresponds to the theoretical spin of the Higgs boson in the theory. However there are other well known particles that have a zero spin like the neutral pion, but these particles are not elementary (they are composed of other smaller particles). In the theory of the standard model, in which one considers only particles supposed to be elementary, the Higgs boson is the only one to have this 0 spin parameter. But experimentally speaking, it is never possible to be sure that a particle is elementary or not. This is why, even if the 0 spin was confirmed, it cannot be used to argue that one has found the first elementary particle having a 0 spin parameter, which would support the statement that the particle discovered is actually the Higgs boson.


 * Its charge and parity is compatible with the theory but the measured values for these parameters are not specific to the Higgs boson.


 * Its mass, "expected" to be roughly between 100 and 200 GeV. The lower limit is the result of previous experiments that have excluded that the Higgs boson can have a mass lower than 100 GeV (otherwise one would have already seen it). The upper limit is a "trick" to avoid a bad consequence of the theoretical model itself, called the quadratic divergence problem. When the mass is less than around 200 GeV, the theoretical problem is still there, but has no physically observable consequence. To summarize, the mass range in which physicists expected to find the Higgs boson is not a constraint given by the theory, and finding a new particle in this mass range is not a sufficient evidence that is particle is a Higgs boson.


 * The couplings to other particles. The newly discovered particle at CERN does interact with both matter particles and gauge bosons, like the Higgs boson should, however this is not specific to the Higgs Boson, since it is also the case of the well-known Z0 boson. The intensity of these interactions for the new particle also seem experimentaly to depend on the mass of the involved particles like the theory of the Higgs boson predicts. This property of the new particle, if confirmed (the uncertainties on the measures are very large) is probably the most convicing evidence that the new particle behaves like the Higgs boson should behave. But the precision of the mesurements is not sufficient to give any evidence that the Higgs potential exists.

All these measured properties do not imply that this new particle is prooved to be the Higgs boson, since all the measured parameters cannot confirm (even undirectly) the existence of the Higgs potential. It is rough noticing that neither the ATLAS nor the CMS collaborations (the 2 main experiments at the LHC) claimed in their official publications that their results exclude the possibility that this particle can be a particle that is not related to the Higgs phenomenon. Fred1810 (talk) 14:02, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

About the Third Opinion request: The request for a Third Opinion has been removed/declined for the lack of any recent thorough discussion on this dispute. The discontinuation of discussion may suggest that one party or the other has conceded the matter or, at the least, no longer wishes to discuss it. The remaining editor may wish to boldly edit the article to see if the other editor reverts. If so, and discussion resumes and stalls out, then the 3O request may be re-made or some other form of dispute resolution may be requested. Regards, TransporterMan  ( TALK ) 14:24, 10 March 2015 (UTC) (3O volunteer) (Not watching)
 * Third opinion response: Firstly, since more than two editors are involved, this isn't optimally suited for requesting a third opinion. As to the content issue, I agree with the editors who emphasize that high quality secondary sources are needed for almost all content in this project. Primary sources can occasionally be used, but they need to be applied with particular care so as to not draw original conclusions. Much of the "certification" section right now in the article cites no sources, primary or secondary. Furthermore, the casual reader will get the idea that the identification of the particle would be in some degree of doubt, and this based on my, admittedly imperfect, understanding of the prevailing consensus isn't a faithful rendering of due weight. Going forward, it would be optimal if the involved editors could view themselves as being on one team and on the same side, rather than being on opposing sides. I think sources could be identified that directly address the level of confidence the majority of particle physics professionals have as to the identity, and a statement could be worded into the article that follows these sources. These sources would ideally say something like "most physicists believe" followed by the view. I hope this helps. --Dailycare (talk) 18:52, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Dear Dailycare, I understand the importance of sources for such an article, and there are some references in the section I added. Possibly not sufficiently and I can add some, but on such a technical topic you can easily require a source every 4 or 5 words, which would be extreme of course. That's why if you feel that on some specific points, some references are missing I can add some. For instance I can add a source to justify that pions are well known scalar particles (actually in this case I can simply add a link to the WP page of scalar mesons). I can also add a source to justify that the mass range in which the higgs boson was expected is not a constraint of the theory: since it can be found in most textbooks on the subject, some of them being already cited. On the fact that the currently measured parameters are not sufficient to exclude other possibilities than a Higgs boson to explain LHC data, I cited a recent paper asserting that technicolor is not ruled out by LHC data, paper which is also referenced here. I can add also this link (see slide 46) which clearly points the theoretical problem of identifying the higgs with the currently measured parameters. If you think that some particular points of the section I added need addtional sources, please let me know.Fred1810 (talk) 09:42, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi there, I believe that instead of finding individual sources, it should be determined what is the balance of opinion among physicists concerning this issue, and present that in the article. While everything in articles must be verifiable, the fact that a source says something doesn't mean that something should or could be inserted into an article on Wikipedia. To assess what the balance of opinion is, the kind of sources I mention above are, in my opinion, very useful since they address directly what is the predominant narrative in reliable sources, thus triggering us to say just that in an article. Cheers, --Dailycare (talk) 20:41, 13 March 2015 (UTC)


 * I agree with Dailycare. The problem with sources is not to show that pions are scalar particles. You need sources that explain how this would be relevant for the Higgs boson. Most of the facts are fine (even without source), but their implications are purely your POV. And given the extremely small group of physicists that follow your opinion, this section does not fit in the article. --mfb (talk) 14:51, 15 March 2015 (UTC)


 * mfb, I hope it's a joke... Your point of view and the one of Ptrslv72 would represent a "consensus"? Also the sources I provided do actually concern the Higgs boson. And I'm really wondering what implication you consider as a "Point Of View" in the section you reverted? For Dailycare: as you can see there is some kind of lobbying on this article thats prevents some basic facts to be written in the article, with the sole argument that they are not mediatiazed, and only a few sources mention it. However, in wikipedia criteria I have also noticed the importance of neutrality in wikipedia articles. One important thing about the present article is that the claim that a Higgs boson was found, excluding other possible explanations, comes at first from the representatives of the CERN collaborations ATLAS and CMS. These collaborations represent 6000 researchers, which is actually an large part of the particle physics community (around 500 institutes with of order 100 researchers each). If you now look outside the "sub-community" of researchers involved directly or undirectly in those two experiments, the basic fact that the currently measured parameters of the particle are not sufficient to prove that it is related to the symmetry breaking phenomenon would not be any more considered as a kind of marginal "point of view"...Fred1810 (talk) 23:23, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Don't forget Dailycare. And the arguments given here that you ignored repeatedly. The ATLAS and CMS collaborations (the fact that they agree on the publications should not be ignored either - no one rejected to get listed as author as far as I know) don't have many theoreticians, and there the particle found is considered as the SM Higgs boson by most of them as well. You have a few (5? 10?) scientists on one side and thousands on the other. Compare that to the length of the article and a very brief section "not all scientists agree with that interpretation" is fine, but more would not reflect the scientific community. --mfb (talk) 11:55, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't go as far as to say that the particle is considered to be the SM Higgs boson by most theorists. It is however considered to be a SM-like Higgs boson, i.e. there is little doubt that it is a Higgs boson and that it does behave roughly as predicted by the SM (although most of us keep hoping that Nature is a bit more generous, and that the SM will eventually need to be extended). BTW, it appears that Fred1810 did not understand the quote in slide 46 of the talk that he linked above. When Haber says "The LHC can never claim the discovery a SM Higgs boson; at best the LHC can claim the discovery of a SM-like Higgs boson", it is clear that he would call the new particle a Higgs boson even if the underlying theory was in fact something else than the SM (the keyword here being "SM-like"). Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 15:06, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay, SM-like. In the same way we study a top-like quark at the LHC. The Higgs measurements are just less precise so far (which is not surprising). --mfb (talk) 15:44, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
 * No, it's not Okay. Calling it "the SM Higgs" assumes that the SM is indeed the theory that describes physics at the TeV scale, and it's definitely too early for that. Imagine that, later this year, ATLAS and CMS find that we are in fact in the MSSM, but the additional Higgses are heavy. The lightest Higgs would be fully SM-like, but you would definitely not call it "SM Higgs". Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 16:30, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
 * "Calling it "the SM Higgs" assumes that the SM is indeed the theory that describes physics at the TeV scale" - I don't think so. There could be other things at the TeV scale (related to the Higgs or completely unrelated). Even if this Higgs particle would turn out to be one of several Higgs particles, it would be the one that looks like the SM Higgs, and the others are from extensions of the SM. Anyway, that's not the relevant point here. --mfb (talk) 16:35, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
 * "the one that looks like the SM Higgs", or in short, "the SM-like Higgs". Anyway you are right that this is not the relevant point. Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 20:34, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Fred1810, the problem with your section is always the same: it reads as if you are putting forward a series of arguments to "debunk" some kind of misconception that the overwhelming majority of the physics community (including the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences that awarded the 2013 Nobel prize) has fallen prey to. Yet another editor (Dailycare above) has tried to explain that this is not how Wikipedia works, but you still don't get it (or pretend not to). I concur with mfb that your POV/OR paragraph should be reverted. Feel free to go for arbitration if you like - although, as Dailycare and mfb pointed out, "third opinion" might not apply to this case where it would rather seem that it's you against the world. Perhaps a more constructive alternative would be to fashion a neutral and properly-sourced paragraph on the prospects for measuring the Higgs self couplings, which - as I wrote from the start - is currently missing in the article.

This said, although the talk page of a Wikipedia article should not be used as a forum to discuss physics, it might help to go at least once through your "arguments".


 * "Its spin, if confirmed to be 0, corresponds to the theoretical spin of the Higgs boson. However there are other well known particles that have a zero spin like the neutral pion or kaon, but these particles are not elementary (they are composed of other smaller particles). In the theory of the standard model, in which one considers only particles supposed to be elementary, the Higgs boson is the only one to have this 0 spin parameter. But experimentally speaking, it is never possible to be sure that a particle is elementary or not. This is why, even if the 0 spin was confirmed, it cannot be used to claim that one has found the first elementary particle having a 0 spin parameter, which would support the statement that the particle discovered is actually the Higgs boson."

I (and other editors) already commented on this several times, but you keep ignoring it. While the Higgs of the SM is indeed an elementary scalar, a particle does not have to be elementary to play the role of a Higgs boson. What matters is that it behaves as a scalar at energy scales comparable with the weak scale. There is indeed a vast literature on models where the field associated to EWSB is composite, and it is considered no less of a Higgs boson for that (just look up "composite Higgs" on INSPIRE).


 * "Its charge and parity is compatible with the theory but the measured values for these parameters are not specific to the Higgs boson."

This is a classic "straw-man" argument. Nobody is claiming that the particle must be a Higgs boson only because it is neutral and CP even (in fact, in models with an extended Higgs sector such as the MSSM, the neutral Higgs bosons might even be admixtures of CP-even and CP-odd).


 * "Its mass, "expected" to be roughly between 100 and 200 GeV. The lower limit is the result of previous experiments that have excluded that the Higgs boson can have a mass lower than 100 GeV (otherwise one would have already seen it). The upper limit is a "trick" to avoid a bad consequence of the theoretical model itself, called the quadratic divergence problem. When the mass is less than around 200 GeV, the theoretical problem is still there, but has no physically observable consequence. The mass range in which physicists expected to find the Higgs boson is therefore not a constraint given by the theory, and finding a new particle in this mass range is not in itself an evidence that is particle is a Higgs boson."

Here it is really hard to understand what you were thinking, since the text is definitely not up to scientific standards even for a Wikipedia article ("a trick to avoid a bad consequence", seriously?) If you are referring to the upper bound from electroweak precision observables, as in the famous "blueband plot", perhaps you should look up how it was derived, and then come back again. FYI, the hierarchy problem has nothing to do with it. The Higgs-boson mass enters the predictions of the SM for a number of observable quantities through quantum corrections. Therefore, under the assumption that the SM provides the correct description of physics at the weak scale, it is possible to determine a preferred value and a 95% CL upper bound for the Higgs mass by fitting it to the experimentally measured values of those observables.


 * "Couplings to other particles. The newly discovered particle at CERN does interact with both matter particles and gauge bosons, like the Higgs boson should, however this is not specific to the Higgs Boson, since it is also the case of the well-known Z0 boson."

Another straw-man argument: nobody ever claimed that the particle must be a Higgs boson just because it "does interact with both matter particles and gauge bosons".


 * "The strength of these interactions for the new particle also seem experimentaly to depend on the mass of the involved particles like the theory of the Higgs boson predicts. This property of the new particle, if confirmed with lower experimental uncertainties, is probably the most convicing evidence that the new particle behaves like the Higgs boson should behave."

Indeed, that's a key point, and it's nice to see that you've finally come onboard. But who gets to decide when the experimental uncertainty is low enough? Anonymous Wikipedia editor Fred1810 or the rest of the physics community? Incidentally, on this issue you might check here the point of view of a respected theorist who is also a blogger.

Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 16:18, 16 March 2015 (UTC)


 * mfb, "considering" that the new particle is actually the Higgs boson is not the same thing as stating you have ruled out any other possible explanation. I've not seen any theoretician making such a statement. Most of them would speak about "the recently discovered Higgs boson" because it is true that the properties of the particle measured at CERN make it looking very much like the Higgs boson, but none of them would declare that the parameters measured at CERN imply with certainty (assuming the gauge theory framework) that this particle is involved in the symmetry breaking phenomenon. The good faith assumed for each wikipedia article implies to recognize this difference. The same remark applies for Ptrslv72 who now used the much more moderated wording "there is little doubt that it is a Higgs boson".... but I guess he has in mind the uncertainties on the measured parameters at CERN, even though I was clear that these uncertainties are completely off-topic here.
 * Ptrslv72, you said that "a particle does not have to be elementary to play the role of a Higgs boson", so I really wonder why you did not modify the first sentence of the wikipedia article saying "The Higgs boson or Higgs particle is an elementary particle ... ". If it is confirmed that the new particle discovered at CERN is related to the symmetry breaking phenomenon, but finally appears to be a technicolor particle, then it is not strictly speaking a Higgs boson (neither from the Standard Model nor from its extensions). And this even though, as you pointed, in numerous scientific articles the term "Higgs boson" is also used to designate technicolor particles as a generic name for a particle responsible for the symmetry breaking phenomenon. But it is clear that in these articles, the authors perfectly know the difference. Keeping this confusion on a wikipedia article (not dedicated only to specialists) is definitely not the best way to clarify things for the reader. From the article again, the Higgs field is also supposed "to take a non-zero constant value almost everywhere": how can you prove that it is true for the particle discovered at CERN ?
 * Now about the arguments I gave, you cited a blog article saying "So we're left with a spin-0 particle as the only reasonable option. But zero spin is still not equivalent to a Higgs boson. ", which is exactly what I said! Regarding the mass range within which the Higgs was searched for, I agree that it was badly formulated and an upper bound from electroweak precision data should be added. Now in order to get to the point rather than evading the issue, when I said "the most convincing evidence that the new particle behaves like the Higgs boson should behave.", I did not say "the most convincing evidence that the new particle is definitely involved in the electroweak symmetry breaking phenomenon". To be more specific, assuming that the parameters measured at CERN were measured with an infinite precision, and assuming the gauge theroy framework, you can conclude from LHC data that the lagrangian contains $$D_\mu\Phi^+ D^\mu\Phi +m^2\Phi^+\Phi + \textrm{Yukawa~terms}$$. with $$\Phi$$ a scalar doublet. But how would you prove from there that $$\Phi$$ is involved in the breakdown of the electroweak symmetry? Why $$\Phi$$ could not be a collateral victim of the broken symmetry? Of course if you decide now that the reference definition of the Higgs boson is the one given in a blog, in which the Higgs boson is no more supposed to be identified as responsible for the symmetry breaking phenomenon.... then of course this discussion would be closed. But it may be useful in that case that you provide reliable source that the commonly accepted definition of a Higgs boson in the physics community is the one given in this blog, because clearly the wikipedia page of the Higgs Boson gives a different definition. Fred1810 (talk) 15:11, 17 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Your use of quotes seems a bit selective to me. Let's see:


 * you said that "a particle does not have to be elementary to play the role of a Higgs boson", so I really wonder why you did not modify the first sentence of the wikipedia article saying "The Higgs boson or Higgs particle is an elementary particle ... ".


 * But the full sentence reads "The Higgs boson or Higgs particle is an elementary particle in the Standard Model of particle physics", i.e. it is restricted to the Higgs of the SM, which is indeed an elementary particle. It wasn't me who wrote the lead, and I would not object to making it more general. Also, I am not a great fan of the second sentence about the field that "cannot be turned off" because it doesn't sound very rigorous, but I guess that whoever wrote it was trying to explain in simple words that the Higgs field has a vev (which is, indeed, its key property).


 * If it is confirmed that the new particle discovered at CERN is related to the symmetry breaking phenomenon, but finally appears to be a technicolor particle, then it is not strictly speaking a Higgs boson (neither from the Standard Model nor from its extensions).


 * If the SM Lagrangian provides a correct description of physics at the energy scale of the LHC, then the new particle found at the LHC is a Higgs, independently of whether or not it turns out to be composite at some higher energy scale. Indeed, the key point of "composite Higgs" models is a separation between the EWSB scale and the scale of the strong dynamics; in contrast, in technicolor models there is no such separation. I hate having to repeat myself for the fifth time, just look up the concept of effective field theory.


 * P.S. An extreme example: imagine that the Higgs is composite, but the compositeness manifests itself only at energy scales of, say, 10^10 GeV. Would you say that the LHC has found a Higgs boson or not?


 * Now about the arguments I gave, you cited a blog article saying "So we're left with a spin-0 particle as the only reasonable option. But zero spin is still not equivalent to a Higgs boson. ", which is exactly what I said!


 * Once again: nobody ever claimed that any spin-zero particle has to be a Higgs boson. Using that to "debunk" the identification of the particle found at the LHC is a classic straw-man argument, and it is certainly not what the author of the blog article is doing (as should be clear when you read the whole thing).


 * To be more specific, assuming that the parameters measured at CERN were measured with an infinite precision, and assuming the gauge theroy framework, you can conclude from LHC data that the lagrangian contains $$D_\mu\Phi^+ D^\mu\Phi +m^2\Phi^+\Phi + \textrm{Yukawa~terms}$$. with $$\Phi$$ a scalar doublet. But how would you prove from there that $$\Phi$$ is involved in the breakdown of the electroweak symmetry? Why $$\Phi$$ could not be a collateral victim of the broken symmetry?


 * As usual, you are conveniently leaving out key pieces of information. In your example, the LHC would also tell us that the Lagrangian contains gauge-boson masses and HWW, HZZ interactions with precisely the right values to be absorbed in a shift of the scalar field, and that the couplings in the Yukawa terms are all exactly proportional to the corresponding fermion masses. In other words, it would tell us that the Higgs enters the Lagrangian strictly in the combination (v+H). If you want to believe that this is due to some crazy conspiracy (and not to the fact that v is simply the vev of H) you still have to explain what is the mechanism that is actually responsible for v, and how it managed to completely escape detection at the LHC. Incidentally, from this point of view it is not clear to me what you would gain by measuring a triple Higgs coupling proportional to the Higgs mass; couldn't it result from your crazy conspiracy just like all the other gauge-breaking terms?


 * P.S. From another point of view: the Lagrangian that you wrote above contains a complex doublet, i.e. four degrees of freedom, but the LHC has found only a neutral scalar. In order to write the Lagrangian like that, you should explain where the pseudoscalar and charged components of the doublet have gone. Again, the problem with your argument is that by "assuming the gauge theory framework" you are leaving out the fact that gauge symmetry is manifestly broken.


 * Anyway, we are straying again into WP:FORUM territory, and wasting precious time. If you want to include in the article the viewpoint that the new particle cannot be identified as a Higgs boson without a measurement of the self couplings, find an appropriate source showing that this viewpoint is held by a significant fraction of the physics community. Otherwise, it's time to move on. Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 23:11, 17 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Ptrslv72, you said "it is restricted to the Higgs of the SM": not at all, the page is neither entitled "Standard Model Higgs Boson" nor "Higgs boson (Standard Model)" but "Higgs Boson"! And then you charge me with using supposedly straw-man arguments?? "turns out to be composite at some higher energy scale": the compositeness of a particle would depend on the enery scale? Interesting... Now regarding the lagrangian expression I wrote: of course it is a partial one! If you tried to understand what I wrote, it was supposed to represent something new one can deduce almost for sure from the LHC data assuming the new field has a local electroweak symmetry. Almost because other alternatives are a priori possible like a non-linear sigma model. In the version I wrote there are obviously more than one real field involved but then one can discuss if they are distinguishable, if some of them are simply not observable as a consequence of the broken symmetry (and not as a cause of it) etc.. The gauge-boson masses should of course be added in the full lagrangian but they are not something new at LHC and HWW or HZZ couplings can originate from several (possibly effective) lagrangians. A kaon couples to Ws but an effective lagrangian describing it is not the same as a the one of a SM Higgs boson or a techniparticle... The fact that these couplings are quite good candidates to rewrite one possible lagrangian in terms of (v+H) is not a proof that no other physically coherent lagrangian is possible. I'm sure you understand the difference between "it can" and "it must"... That's why self couplings measurements would make it much more realistic that this particle field was responsible for an instability leading to the electroweak symmetry breakdown. May be most researchers don't care because they are confident in the existence of such an Higgs potential, but there are nevertheless some who consider that this confirmation is essential, like in one of the references I already proposed. But apparently any reference I can propose would not be sufficiently representative for you or mfb, and I think that an outside view would be necessary here.Fred1810 (talk) 23:44, 20 March 2015 (UTC)


 * 1) Read again, I wrote that the sentence (not the page) refers to the SM Higgs, and that I would not object to making it (i.e., the sentence) more general; I can't figure out if yours is just bad faith or serious trouble in reading/comprehension 2) Sure, a particle can look elementary at some energy scale and manifest its compositeness only at a higher scale, what part of "effective theory" you don't understand? (and BTW, you did not answer my question in P.S.) 3) I am tired of repeating myself trying to make sense of your rants, this last one does not add anything to the one before. Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 01:47, 21 March 2015 (UTC)