Researchers contribute to further Higgs boson breakthrough

For the second time this summer, University of Glasgow physicists are celebrating a groundbreaking new measurement of the Higgs boson from the ATLAS Collaboration at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC). This time, they have observed the Higgs boson decaying into a pair of bottom (b) quarks. Professor Aidan Robson, who leads the University of Glasgow's team on this analysis work, explained, "Our theory of particle physics - the 'Standard Model' - predicts that most Higgs bosons should decay to b-quarks. But because there are many other processes that look similar in the ATLAS detector, it has taken us a long time to be able to observe it. Though we discovered the Higgs boson in 2012, we are learning new things about it all the time as the LHC continues to run." ATLAS Spokesperson Karl Jakobs said, "ATLAS is proud to announce the observation of this important and challenging Higgs boson decay. While the result is certainly a confirmation of the Standard Model, it is equally a triumph for our analysis teams. During the early preparations of the LHC, there were doubts on whether this observation could be achieved.