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On 4th of July 2019, the discovery of the Higgs boson has its 7th anniversary.
Though seven years later, this crucial elementary particle has lost nothing of its fascination.
It remains in the spotlight of research and physics conferences and is still a favorite topic in the media.
Since this boson - also referred to as the “God particle“ - was theoretically predicted by physicists Peter Higgs, François Englert, and others in the 1960s, the experimental proof of the Higgs particle was something like the search for the Holy Grail of particle physics for almost half a century.
In 2012, this era came to an end with the announcement of the discovery of the Higgs boson at CERN. In the following year, Peter Higgs and François Englert were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for their theoretical works which had fascinated generations of particle physicists.
With the confirmation of the Higgs boson’s existence by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN’s LHC particle collider, the theory of the standard model of particle physics could be completed. The Higgs boson and the even more exotic Higgs field provide the answer to one of the most fundamental questions of particle physics: How does matter obtain mass?
Although the underlying theories are notoriously abstract and might strike the layperson and non-expert as a mystery, the Higgs boson has become a sort of pop star of physics worldwide over the decades.
In this ScienceQuest edition, we want to unveil the mystery of the Higgs boson and give you some deeper insights into the theoretical concepts and ideas that have led to its discovery and beyond. You will be provided with a working knowledge and profound basics to advance further into the subject.
You'll get an introduction into particle physics, the standard model, quantum theory and quantum field theory, symmetries and the mechanism of spontaneous symmetry breaking which is crucial for the understanding of the Higgs boson. You will find out about the particle physics underway at the LHC and how the discovery of the Higgs boson could actually be achieved.
Besides that and more, you’ll get an idea of new physics beyond the standard model and what to expect in the future.
The "Mystery of the Higgs boson" is available as Kindle® Edition !
The ebook is also available in German!