[LINK] o/t "every known particle has an undetected partner"?

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

One of the better Higgs boson reports.. 

LHC sees hint of *lightweight* Higgs boson 

14:44 13 December 2011 by Lisa Grossman 


The ultra-shy Higgs boson may have finally shown itself at the LHC. 

Both of the main detectors, ATLAS and CMS, have uncovered hints of a 
lightweight Higgs. If it pans out, the only remaining hole in the 
standard model would be filled.

Even more exciting, a Higgs of this mass, about 125 gigaelectronvolts, 
would also blast a path to uncharted terrain. 

Such a featherweight would need at least one new type of particle to 
stabilise it. "It's very exciting," says CMS spokesman Guido Tonelli. 
"This could be the first ring in a chain of discoveries."

Although both teams see an excess around the same mass, there is not yet 
enough data to claim a discovery. "There's clearly not enough to conclude 
anything at this stage," Gianotti says.

Even a hint of a 125-GeV Higgs has theorists sighing with relief. 

Although the standard model can't predict the particle's mass directly, 
it does predict how other particles interact with the Higgs – in 
particular, the W and Z bosons that are responsible for the weak nuclear 
force. Earlier experiments found that the W and Z bosons weigh 80.4 and 
91.2 GeV, respectively. 

Because of the way those particles interact, the Higgs mass probably 
comes out somewhere between about 115 and 130 GeV. 

A Higgs at 125 GeV or so "is just what the doctor ordered," says Nobel 
laureate Frank Wilczek of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

That mass also paves the way for physics beyond the standard model. 

Thanks to subtle quantum mechanical effects, a lightweight Higgs needs a 
heavier companion particle "acting as a sort of bodyguard", Tonelli says. 

Otherwise, the quantum vacuum from which particles appear would be 
unstable, and the universe would long ago have disintegrated. 

If the Higgs is lightweight, the fact that we are here today suggests 
there is at least one extra particle beyond the standard model.

Wilczek thinks that's great news. It leaves the door open for one of the 
most mathematically beautiful extensions of the standard model. 

That is, "Supersymmetry" or SUSY for short, which suggests that every 
known particle has an as yet-undetected partner. 

It can unite the strong and weak nuclear forces with the electromagnetic 
force, and offers a candidate for dark matter.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21279-lhc-sees-hint-of-lightweight-
higgs-boson.html?page=1

Cheers,
Stephen