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Small Hall, Room 111
300 Ukrop Way
Williamsburg, VA 23185Map this location

Abstract: The Standard Model of particle physics describes the strong, weak and electromagnetic interactions of all known fundamental particles with high precision. There remains, however, a crucial question: how do fundamental particles acquire their masses, since the symmetries of the Standard Model forbid them? The preferred explanation requires the existence of an additional particle, the Higgs boson. Discovery of the Higgs boson has been the major goal of experimental high energy physics for decades, and evidence for a Higgs boson at a mass of 125 GeV was announced at the LHC last month. In this talk, I will introduce the Standard Model and discuss the importance of the Higgs and describe its properties. I will then talk about how one can detect it, discuss the search for it over the past 25 years, and then describe the recent experimental results from the LHC and talk about expectations over the next few months.