Birmingham Physicists excited by hints of Higgs boson existence

Birmingham particle physicists are today trawling through the data from particle collisions at the Large Hadron Collider that could indicate the existence of the Higgs boson. Against the regular backdrop of results from known processes, proton-proton collisions have produced considerable fluctuations that have intrigued scientists working at the ATLAS project in CERN. The discovery of the Higgs boson could fill in a vital missing link in the 'standard model' which is the accepted theory of particle physics - it will tell scientists why everything in the universe has mass. As a result of smashing high energy protons together about 100 trillion times the physicists have now been able to rule out the Higgs boson particle over an extensive mass range, in particular at large masses, where no previous studies have been possible. This has given them a better, more precise clue as to where this elusive particle might be found. Professor Paul Newman, particle physicist from the University of Birmingham and member of the ATLAS collaboration said: ' We have a very successful theory that describes all of the known elementary particles and the forces that act between them. However, it doesn't give the particles any mass, so we need to add one more ingredient to this theory which is where the Higgs boson comes in.