Standard Model Gallery

Englert and Higgs at CERN C013/6880

Francois Englert (born 1932, left) and Peter Higgs (born 1929, right), Belgian and British theoretical physicists, at the Higgs boson discovery announcement, 4th July 2012, at CERN (the European particle physics laboratory). Data collected by the CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) and ATLAS (a torodial LHC apparatus) experiments at the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) at CERN have shown a new particle at around 125 giga electron volts (GeV). Further analysis will determine if the particle is the long sought for Higgs boson, a fundamental particle that is thought to give other particles mass. Peter Higgs predicted its existence in 1964. Englert, along with Higgs and Robert Brout, explained how the Higgs field confers mass on other particles through their interaction with it. This is known as the Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism. Higgs and Englert were awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of the Higgs field

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