Backgrounders
On the Higgs boson
Higgs update 4 July
CERN observes new fundamental particle – what comes next?
Higgs boson - Higgs limit FAQ for EPS-HEP 2011
Extracts from a paper by the CERN Scientific Policy Committee on the scientific significance of the possible exclusion regions of the Higgs
Important terms in Higgs research
Use our glossary of important terms from particle physics and statistics to inform your articles on the Higgs boson
The Higgs boson: Evolution or revolution?
Discovering the Higgs particle at the LHC would be a triumph, but showing that it doesn’t exist could be just as exciting
The Higgs boson
The Standard Model cannot explain why particles have mass. The Higgs may be the answer, and CERN physicists are looking for it
Other topics in physics
Compositeness
The unprecedented energy of proton collisions at the LHC could be what scientists need to find a new world of subatomic particles
Dark matter
Dark matter makes up more than 80% of all the matter in the universe, but it can only be detected by its gravitational effects
Extra dimensions
Of the four forces that govern the way particles interact, gravity is the weakest. Could the weakness be due to as-yet-undetected dimensions?
First result from the AMS experiment
The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) Collaboration announces the publication of its first physics result in Physical Review Letters
Fourth-generation particles
Experiments at the Large Hadron Collider could reveal additional types of subatomic particles that make up our universe
Heavy-ion collisions, the quark-gluon plasma, and quantum chromodynamics
CERN physicists collide heavy ions to free quarks from their bonds - recreating conditions that existed in the universe just after the big bang
Matter/antimatter asymmetry
The big bang should have created equal amounts of matter and antimatter in the early universe. So why is there so much more matter than antimatter today?
Supersymmetry
Supersymmetry predicts a partner particle for each of the particles in the Standard Model
The safety of the LHC
The LHC Safety Assessment Group reaffirms that LHC collisions present no danger and that there are no reasons for concern
The top quark
The heaviest subatomic particle ever observed - first seen at Fermilab in 1995 - remains a topic of intensive research today
W prime and Z prime
Finding hypothetical particles called W' or Z' could give us clues as to how the fundamental forces relate to one another