According to the Standard Model of particle physics, the Higgs boson rots indirectly into known unnoticeable particles– nearly massless particles called neutrinos– only 0.1% of the time. However, if dark matter is comprised of particles connecting too weakly to be detected, as presumed by numerous physicists, the dark-matter particle might communicate with the Higgs boson and, if not too massive, allow the Higgs boson to decay into it, increasing the fraction of undetectable Higgs-boson decomposes.
In their most current independent examinations, the ATLAS and CMS partnerships searched for unnoticeable Higgs-boson decomposes in proton– proton crash data gathered throughout the 2nd run of the LHC. Both groups searched for a specific kind of collision event, in which a Higgs boson is produced by a procedure called vector-boson blend and after that decomposes into undetectable particles.
These vector-boson-fusion events include additional sprays, or “jets”, of particles emitted towards either end of the particle detectors, making this mode of Higgs-boson production easier to find than the other modes. Together with the “missing energy” in the crash items that the undetectable particles would bring away, these jets and their homes supply distinctive signatures of such unnoticeable Higgs-boson events.
The ATLAS and CMS searches exposed no instances of these unnoticeable Higgs-boson events that would exceed the anticipated variety of background events simulating the preferred occasions. However, they revealed that the Higgs boson can not decay into invisible particles more frequently than a specific percentage of time: 15% for ATLAS and 18% for CMS, compared to a predicted portion, based upon Standard Model computer simulations, of 10% for both ATLAS and CMS.
These bounds align well with one another and, when analyzed in the context of dark-matter models, they translate into bounds on the interaction strength of dark-matter particles with atomic nuclei that match those gotten from non-collider experiments searching for dark matter.
With the LHC set to restart later this year and provide more data, ATLAS and CMS will no doubt continue to chase the invisible with the Higgs boson.
Prospect occasion displays of a Higgs boson produced by vector-boson combination and rotting into undetectable particles. Credit: CERN
The collaborations have actually set strict new bounds on the portion of Higgs bosons changing into unnoticeable particles.
The Higgs boson lives for an incredibly brief time before it transforms, or “rots”, into other particles. It is through the detection of a few of these decay items that the special particle has initially been– and continues to be– found in particle crashes at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
But what if the Higgs boson likewise decayed into unanticipated, new particles that were undetectable to the LHC detectors, such as the particles that may constitute the dark matter permeating deep space? The ATLAS and CMS collaborations at the LHC have explored this possibility in 2 current research studies, setting stringent brand-new upper bounds on the fraction of Higgs bosons decomposing into undetectable particles.
