[Version française]
News: discovery of a scalar particle!
Press conference at CERN on Wednesday July 4th 2012 before
ICHEP.
See here the
press announcement by the authorities of the
Université Libre de Bruxelles (
FR version here).
See also
the talk at Fermilab (Chicago) on Monday July 2nd 2012 (
"CDF and DZero Higgs results with the full Tevatron Data Set").
Press release!
Interview of François Englert after the CERN presentations of the two experiments.
See also the
news pages at ULB.
The Brout-Englert-Higgs boson
Why is the Brout-Englert-Higgs boson is commonly called the Higgs boson?
Here is Steven Weinberg's version of the story:
“In his recent book, The Infinity Puzzle (Basic Books, 2011), Frank Close points out that a mistake of mine was in part responsible for the term “Higgs boson.” In my 1967 paper on the unification of weak and electromagnetic forces, I cited 1964 work by Peter Higgs and two other sets of theorists. (...) As to my responsibility for the name “Higgs boson,” because of a mistake in reading the dates on these three earlier papers, I thought that the earliest was the one by Higgs, so in my 1967 paper I cited Higgs first, and have done so since then. Other physicists apparently have followed my lead. But as Close points out, the earliest paper of the three I cited was actually the one by Robert Brout and François Englert. In extenuation of my mistake, I should note that Higgs and Brout and Englert did their work independently and at about the same time, as also did the third group (Gerald Guralnik, C.R. Hagen, and Tom Kibble). But the name “Higgs boson” seems to have stuck.” (As to the last sentence, let us recall, however, that Guralnik, Hagen, and Kibble do quote in their 1964 paper the works of Brout-Englert and Higgs).
Press: some introductions on the Brout-Englert-Higgs boson
" A quick description of the symmetry breaking and Scalar Boson" (by François Englert )
A short introduction on the Brout-Englert-Higgs boson, and the contribution of
Robert Brout (1928-2011) and
François Englert.
A talk (en anglais) by Jean-Marie Frère on the history of the invention of gauge symmetry breaking and the role of the scalar boson.
A talk (en français) by Jean-Marie Frère for the Wolf prize.
A presentation (in french) of the IAP - Fundamental Interactions (
ook NL versie).
From studies to research with François (Englert) and Robert (Brout), by Jean-Marie Frère.
Videos
Interview of François Englert at CERN (July 2012)
A new particle has been discovered by Jean-Marie Frère
Some pics of Robert Brout and François Englert (copyright, unless otherwise stated: ULB)
CERN, 4 juillet 2012:
The 47th "Rencontres de Moriond" particle physics meeting took place in La Thuile, Italy. On Wednesday March 7th, a session on "Electroweak symmetry breaking" was dedicated to the search for the (Brout-Englert-Higgs) Scalar boson, with the latest results from Tevatron (DZero and CDF), and LHC (Atlas, CMS). The session was opened by François Englert giving a personal vision of the breaking mechanisms, and concluded with an extended discussion, structured by a compilation of the salient results by Jean-François Grivaz.
From left to right: Homer Wolfe (CDF), Sandra Kortner (ATLAS), Joe Haley (D0), Wade Fisher (CDF & D0), François Englert, Marco Pieri (CMS), Jean-François Grivaz.
François Englert teaching symmetry breaking...
Portraits of Robert Brout (2009, 2005 et 1964):
Copyright: Kathryn Graham
Portraits of François Englert:
