SCIENCE
PETAR ADŽIĆ PH.D., SERBIA’S SCIENTIFIC DELEGATE IN CERN COUNCIL
DECADE AFTER HISTORIC
HIGGS BOSON DISCOVERY To this very day, almost seven decades after its establishment, the European centre for nuclear research that’s known as CERN represents the most prestigious international scientific organisation, the work of which also includes the participation of numerous teams from Serbia SM’s last missing particle, was wrong”. Finally, after more than 60 years of hunting, it was found in 2012, when the two largest experiments in particle physics – ATLAS and CMS – announced this historic discovery on 4th July at CERN. It represents a huge leap in particle physics, the predicting of which was worthy of the Nobel prize in physics for two great physicists, Peter Higgs and Francois Englert. Among the many scientists taking part in this long journey, Serbian scientists were involved in both of these experiments from 2001 and also gave direct contributions. These two largest and most complex experiments in the history of science involve about 9,000 scientists, engineers and experts of various profiles.
CMS project control room
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peaking to CorD Magazine on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the revolutionary discovery of the Higgs boson, professor Petar Adžić discusses the latest results and upcoming research into the properties of this elementary particle, but also CERN’s importance to Serbia’s scientific community, education system and economy.
■ Precisely 10 years have passed since the discovery of the Higgs boson particle, also known among journalists as the “God particle”. How do you view this turning point in science from today’s perspective? 22
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- The Higgs boson was probably the longest awaited particle clearly predicted by the prevailing Standard Model (SM) theory of particle physics. During my past lectures at the Faculty of Physics of the University of Belgrade, I very often had to answer the same question posed by students: do I believe the Higgs boson really exists? My answer was always the same: “besides strong physics and mathematical arguments, there is one more convincing argument: with the exception of the Higgs boson, all particles predicted by the Standard Model – the most precise theory in particle physics – have to date been confirmed as existing, and it is thus hard to believe that only the prediction of the Higgs boson, the
■ Was research on the Higgs boson and the Higgs field concluded back in 2012? - This discovery represented a turning point in High Energy Physics (HEP) and for particle physicists at the same time also the beginning of new challenges and deeper studies. It firstly confirmed SM as the leading theory of current energies produced at the LHC accelerator complex. This particle also confirms the existence of the complex Higgs field, thus encouraging physicists that they are on the right track in their research endeavours. However, although it is perfectly explained mathematically, we still do not understand the physics behind the Higgs mechanism and how it acts in the creation of particle masses. There are so many phenomena within the Higgs sector that we still need to understand and we are trying to study them in the Higgs boson’s interactions with other particles. Over the last ten years, ATLAS and CMS experiments performed very
