CERN marks 10th anniversary of Higgs boson discovery

Officials at the CERN particle-physics lab gathered last month to celebrate a decade since the announcement of the discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Held in CERN’s main auditorium, the anniversary symposium featured talks about the discovery as well as the latest Higgs research and what to expect in the coming decades of particle-physics research. 

The event took place in the very same venue in which the ATLAS and CMS collaborations at the LHC announced on 4 July 2012 the discovery of a new particle with features consistent with that of the Higgs boson (see July 2022). A year later François Englert and Peter Higgs bagged the Nobel Prize for Physics for their theoretical predictions. “The discovery of the Higgs boson was a monumental milestone in particle physics. It marked both the end of a decades-long journey of exploration and the beginning of a new era of studies of this very special particle,” said CERN director general Fabiola Gianotti, who in 2012 was spokesperson for the ATLAS experiment. “I remember with emotion the day of the announcement, a day of immense joy.” 

The symposium also featured video messages from Higgs and Englert as well as former CERN director general Rolf-Dieter Heuer, who was leading the lab when the announcement was made. “I think it’s splendid that you are having a celebration after 10 years,” noted Higgs, who is now 93. Englert, meanwhile, said he “vividly” remembered the events on the 4 July 2012 and paid tribute to the contribution of the US–Belgian physicist Robert Brout, who died in 2011 and who might well have shared the Nobel prize with Higgs and Englert had he lived longer. “Today, we celebrate the memory of this great physicist and wonderful man,” noted Englert. 

Other talks at the symposium were given by Lyn Evans, who helped to build the LHC, as well as senior officials at the ATLAS and CMS detectors and leading theorists. Gianotti noted that the discovery of the Higgs boson opened up a new “era of exploration” that has “wide-ranging implications” for particle physics and beyond. She also highlighted the “superb” performance of the LHC in the decade since the discovery – noting nine million Higgs bosons have been produced at both ATLAS and CMS to date — as well as improvements in analysis methods and collaboration with theory. 

Meanwhile, the next science run at the LHC – what is known as “run 3” – began on 5 July. It is expected to last until 2025 when the LHC will then be shut down to make way for a major upgrade where it will be converted into the High-Luminosity LHC. “The future is bright,” noted Gianotti.