1 August 2012
ATLAS and CMS submit Higgs-search papers
![[IMAGE]](features/120801_Higgs-candidate2.jpg)
Protons collide in the CMS detector at 8 TeV, forming Z bosons which decay into electrons (green lines) and muons (red). Such an event is compatible with the decay of a Standard Model Higgs boson (Image: CMS)
The ATLAS and CMS collaborations today submitted papers to the journal Physics Letters B outlining the latest on their searches for the Higgs boson. The teams report even stronger evidence for the presence of a new Higgs-like particle than announced on 4 July.
On 4 July the experiments reported indications for the presence of a new particle, which could be the Higgs boson, in the mass region around 126 gigaelectronvolts (GeV). Both ATLAS and CMS gave the level of significance of the result as 5 sigma. On the scale that particle physicists use to describe the certainty of a discovery, one sigma means the results could be random fluctuations in the data, 3 sigma counts as evidence and a 5-sigma result is a discovery.
The CMS results reported today reach a significance of 5.0 sigma, and the ATLAS team's results reach 5.9 sigma. The value corresponds to a one-in-550 million chance that in the absence of a Higgs such a signal would be recorded.
![[IMAGE]](features/120801_Higgs-candidate-ATLAS.png)
Protons collide in the ATLAS detector, producing two pairs of electrons (red and blue). Such an event is compatible with the decay of a Higgs boson (Image: ATLAS)