Brace yourself for the Higgs endgame

By James Dacey

Hamish Johnston, editor of physicsworld.com, has just left the building and is winging his way to Geneva. Hamish will be on the ground at CERN tomorrow reporting on developments as the two primary experiment teams at the LHC searching for the Higgs boson – ATLAS and CMS – will be presenting new results. Strong speculation suggests that an official discovery of this long-sought particle is now tantalizingly close, though whether or not the particle complies with the Standard Model of particle physics remains to be seen.

To whet your appetite ahead of the big day tomorrow, take a look at this video, which gives you an insight into how scientists at ATLAS and CMS are trying to find the Higgs. I produced this video report at CERN last year and it’s interesting to hear scientists from both experiments saying they were confident that by the end of 2012 they would know whether or not the Higgs exists. I was given a tour of the CMS control room by the experiment’s then-spokesperson, Guido Tonelli, who talked me through the collision images on a big screen and the particle trails they expect to see for a Higgs boson.

Since this film was made we have undoubtedly entered the endgame in this hunt. But will tomorrow bring a decisive capture? Stay tuned to physicsworld.com and our Twitter feed for updates.