Nguyen Phuong Dang - Higgs physics at the LHC

Speaker: Nguyen Phuong Dang, University of Louisville, Department of Physics and Astronomy

Abstract: Although the Standard Model describes many experimental results with high accuracy, it still has weaknesses. The three electroweak bosons (W+/- and Z0) which were discovered experimentally in 1983 introduced mass terms to the equations of the Standard Model, and thus violated the gauge symmetries. A mechanism was proposed in 1964 by R. Brout, F. Englert and P. Higgs as the simplest solution to attribute mass not only to the W+/- and Z0 bosons but also to quarks and leptons while preserving the gauge symmetries of the Standard Model. This theoretical model, known as the "Englert-Brout-Higgs mechanism" or "Higgs mechanism", indicates the existence of one additional particle, the Higgs boson. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) with the major motivation of searching for the Higgs boson. Two multi-purpose detector systems, ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS) and CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid), were installed at the LHC to search independently for the Higgs boson and new phenomena beyond the Standard Model. This talk gives an overview of recent results in Higgs boson physics obtained with the ATLAS and CMS experiments, and prospects of future Higgs boson measurements at the LHC.