An Introduction to the Higgs Boson Particle

The Discovery of the Higgs Boson

In this course, Dr Frank Taylor (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) explains what the Higgs Boson is and how it was discovered. In the first mini-lecture, we give a general introduction to the Higgs Boson, discussing the significance of it’s discovery and the important role it plays in the Standard Model. In the second mini-lecture, we introduce the units and important constants used in High Energy Physics, including the units of electronvolts for energy, Planck’s constant, and units of barns for scattering cross sections. In the third mini-lecture, we review classical electromagnetism and Special Relativity before exploring High Energy Physics, in particular the forces of nature, in the fourth mini-lecture. The fifth mini-lecture discusses the elementary particles that make up the Standard Model and looks at how the Higgs Boson interacts with other fundamental particles. Finally, the sixth mini-lecture describes the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the ATLAS experiment that detected the Higgs Boson, and the data itself.

An Introduction to the Higgs Boson Particle

In this mini-lecture, we give a big-picture introduction the the Higgs Boson. As we move through this mini-lecture, we discuss: (i) who was involved in the discovery — a collaboration among groups working at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS (ATLAS), and Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS); (ii) the experiment that detects the Higgs Boson done at the LHC in Geneva, Switzerland; (iii) the announcement of the observation of the Higgs Boson on July 4th, 2012; and (iv) what the Higgs Boson does using an analogy.