From Photons to Higgs : A Story of Light

142 Pages·2014·1.711 MB·English

by  Moo-Young Han

FROM PHOTONS TO HIGGS
A Story of Light
(2nd Edition)
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TThhiiss ppaaggee iinntteennttiioonnaallllyy lleefftt bbllaannkk
FROM PHOTONS TO HIGGS
A Story of Light
(2nd Edition)
Moo-Young Han
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Korea
& Duke University, USA
World Scientific
NEW JERSEY • LONDON • SINGAPORE • BEIJING • SHANGHAI • HONG KONG • TAIPEI • CHENNAI
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Published by
World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
5 Toh Tuck Link, Singapore 596224
USA office: 27 Warren Street, Suite 401-402, Hackensack, NJ 07601
UK office: 57 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9HE
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Credit for Cover Image:
Photograph produced by CERN: “CMS: Simulated Higgs to two jets and two electrons”.
© 1997 CERN (License: CC-BY-SA-3.0)
Image creator: Lucas Taylor
FROM PHOTONS TO HIGGS
A Story of Light
Second Edition
Copyright © 2014 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval
system now known or to be invented, without written permission from the publisher.
For photocopying of material in this volume, please pay a copying fee through the Copyright Clearance
Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. In this case permission to photocopy
is not required from the publisher.
ISBN 978-981-4579-95-7
ISBN 978-981-4583-86-2 (pbk)
Typeset by Stallion Press
Email: [email protected]
Printed in Singapore
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For Eema, Grace, Chris and Tony
January 16, 2014 16:6 9in x 6in A Story of Light (2nd Edition) b1720-fm
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Acknowledgments
IwouldliketoexpressmygratitudetoDr.K.K.Phua,theChairman
of the World Scientific Publishing Company, for visionary encour-
agement and steady guidance throughout the work on this Second
Edition.
I also appreciate the kindness and encouragement of Professor
Sung Mo (Steve) Kang, the President of Korea Advanced Institute
of Science and Technology (KAIST), who provided opportunity for
the completion of this work while at KAIST.
Lastly, thanks are also due to Mr. Kah Fee Ng for his meticu-
lous editing of the manuscript that made significant improvement on
this book.
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January 16, 2014 16:6 9in x 6in A Story of Light (2nd Edition) b1720-fm
TThhiiss ppaaggee iinntteennttiioonnaallllyy lleefftt bbllaannkk
January 16, 2014 16:6 9in x 6in A Story of Light (2nd Edition) b1720-fm
Foreword to the Second
Edition
When the first version of this book was published in 2004, the
Tevatron collider near Chicago, then the world’s highest-energy par-
ticle accelerator, has peaked to its maximum energy. It helped to pin
downthetop quarkwhichcompleted thepictureofthreegenerations
of quarks and leptons. Its highest energy was however not sufficient
to find evidences for the long sought-after Higgs particle.
Without either the confirmation or refutation of the Higgs mech-
anism,theStandardModelof quarksandleptonsfor theelectroweak
interaction was more or less on hold, waiting for more powerful par-
ticle accelerator to come online. The particle physics community was
eagerly waiting for the successful completion of the Large Hadron
Collider (LHC), which was under construction at CERN, the Center
for European Nuclear Research, in Geneva, Switzerland.
Finally, after a long wait, the LHC came online in 2009 and on
July 4, 2011, the dramatic announcement was made to the effect
that researchers at CERN have accumulated enough evidence for
a particle that looked very much like the long sought-after Higgs
particle.
Sincethenmoresupportingdatawereaccumulatedinfavorofthe
newly discovered particle being the Higgs particle. But to this day
people are still hedging. They refer to it as a “Higgs-like particle” or
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