The Search for the Higgs Boson at the Tevatron

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Date/Time:Wednesday, 01 Dec 2010 from 4:10 pm to 5:10 pm
Location:A401, Zaffarano Hall
Phone:515-294-5062
Channel:College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Actions:Download iCal/vCal | Email Reminder
Dr. Robert Roser (CDF Spokersperson), Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

The most important issue facing modern High Energy Physics is the origin of electroweak symmetry breaking and associated new physics at the electroweak scale. Other issues, such as "the origin of flavor", "the origin of mass patterns and mixing angles", "dark matter and dark energy", "is string theory the theory of everything?" are contingent on how electroweak symmetry breaking occurs. We cannot ascertain what the scientific handles on these latter problems are until we understand whether nature deploys an elementary Higgs boson, whether nature is super-symmetric, whether there are new strong forces, etc. Our entire philosophy of nature turns on the unknown physics at the electroweak scale. Moreover, the Standard Model itself points to a low mass for the Higgs boson, the simplest hypothetical agent of the origin of mass. Standard Model fits constrain the Higgs boson to the mass range 114 GeV < MH < 145 GeV at 95% C.L.

We are only beginning, with the Fermilab Tevatron, to reveal this layer of nature. It is important to realize that, while the Tevatron has the mass reach of the electroweak scale, it is now arriving at the required integrated luminosities to discover new objects produced by the electroweak scale interactions, such as the Higgs boson. This program is running spectacularly well and is beginning to probe possible realms of new physics.

In this talk I will present what is currently known about the Higgs Boson and what we hope to achieve at the Tevatron in the coming few years.