New research suggests the never-before-seen particle discovered last year in the CERN particle accelerator may not have been the elusive Higgs after all.
Last year, CERN announced they had discovered the elementary Higgs particle, but an international research team has pointed out there is no conclusive evidence that the findings are indeed the sought-after particles, the University of Southern Denmark reported. Elementary particles are divided into two catagories: building blocks of matter (fermions) and carriers of force (bosons).
"The CERN data is generally taken as evidence that the particle is the Higgs particle. It is true that the Higgs particle can explain the data but there can be other explanations, we would also get this data from other particles," said Mads Toudal Frandsen.
The analysis does not completely rule out the possibility of the discovery being the Higgs particle, but suggests it is equally possible that it is a different particle. The team believes it could also be the techni-higgs particles, which hold similarities with the Higgs, but are also very different. The Higgs particle is the missing piece of the Standard Model, which works to describe three of the four forces of nature, but cannot describe dark matter.
"A techni-higgs particle is not an elementary particle. Instead, it consists of so-called techni-quarks, which we believe are elementary. Techni-quarks may bind together in various ways to form for instance techni-higgs particles, while other combinations may form dark matter. We therefore expect to find several different particles at the LHC, all built by techni-quarks," Toudal Frandsen said.
If techni-quarks exist, they must be bound together, but this would not be possible through the four forces of nature (gravity, the electromagnetic force, the weak nuclear force and the strong nuclear force), which suggests there is a fifth unknown force of nature called the "technicolor force."
Researchers suggest what was found in the CERN accelerator last year is either the Higgs particle of the Standard Model or a light techni-higgs particle made up of two techni-quarks.
