What’s up with the Higgs since its groundbreaking discovery?

Credit: CERN

What has hap­pened since the ground­break­ing dis­cov­ery of the Higgs boson at CERN’s Large Hadron col­lider in 2012?
Did physi­cists find what they expected, a Higgs boson which behaves as pre­dicted? Or did they uncover devi­a­tions from the pre­dicted prop­er­ties, which could indi­cate the exis­tence of new par­ti­cles or forces that inter­act with the Higgs boson, or even addi­tional Higgs boson species? Con­tinue read­ing "What’s up with the Higgs since its ground­break­ing dis­cov­ery?"

First cosmic discovery in both gravitational waves and light

Credit: Karan Jani/Georgia Tech

A ground­break­ing announce­ment was made on 16th of Octo­ber by the LIGO Sci­en­tific Col­lab­o­ra­tion, Virgo Col­lab­o­ra­tion, and its part­ners. For the very first time, both grav­i­ta­tional waves and elec­tro­mag­netic waves have been observed from the same cos­mic event, the inspi­ral and col­li­sion of two neu­tron stars. Con­tinue read­ing "First cos­mic dis­cov­ery in both grav­i­ta­tional waves and light"

Nobel Prize goes to Gravitational Waves

Credit: The SXS (Simulating eXtreme Spacetimes) Project

On Octo­ber 3, this year’s Nobel Prize in physics was awarded jointly to physi­cists Rainer Weiss, emer­i­tus pro­fes­sor at MIT, Kip S. Thorne and Barry C. Bar­ish, both emer­i­tus pro­fes­sors at Cal­tech 
"for deci­sive con­tri­bu­tions to the LIGO detec­tor and the obser­va­tion of grav­i­ta­tional waves," as the Nobel Prize Com­mit­tee put it.
Con­tinue read­ing "Nobel Prize goes to Grav­i­ta­tional Waves"

Charmonium Physics at LHCb

Credit: CERN

On 13th of Sep­tem­ber, the LHCb exper­i­ment at CERN pre­sented a mea­sure­ment of the masses of two par­tic­u­lar par­ti­cles with a pre­ci­sion that is unprece­dented at a col­lider like the LHC. Until then, pre­cise stud­ies of these “char­mo­nium” par­ti­cles were only pos­si­ble with purpose-​built exper­i­ments and seemed impos­si­ble to be achieved at a hadron col­lider.

Con­tinue read­ing "Char­mo­nium Physics at LHCb"