Today’s Spotlight uses an image courtesy of CERN showing the simulated decay of a Higgs boson into two jets of hadrons and two electrons. The lines represent the possible paths of particles produced by the proton‑proton collision in the detector while the energy these particles deposit is shown in blue.

Today CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, announced the most conclusive evidence yet for the existence of the Higgs boson, a long‑elusive cornerstone of the Standard Model of physics. This subatomic particle, first postulated in the 1960s and widely sought ever since, is thought to underlie the origins of mass.

More than 50 MIT physicists and students were part of the CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) experiment at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, representing that experiment’s largest contingent of physicists from any American university. MIT Professor of Physics Christoph Paus is one of two lead investigators (with Albert De Roeck of CERN) on the CMS Higgs search, which comprises roughly 500 scientists.

Paus spoke with MIT News about the Institute’s contribution to this apparent breakthrough in particle physics, as well as the result’s significance for our understanding of the universe. Read more