Related papers: To be or not to be: Higgs impostors at the LHC
We show how to systematically analyze what may be inferred should a new scalar particle be discovered in collider experiments. Our approach is systematic in the sense that we perform the analysis in a manner which minimizes apriori…
This talk summarizes a method for analyzing the properties of any new scalar particle, which is systematic in the sense that it minimizes apriori theoretical assumptions about the properties of the scalar particle, leading to very…
Interpretations of Higgs searches critically involve production cross sections and decay probabilities for different analysis channels. Mixing effects can reduce production rates, while invisible decays can reduce decay probabilities. Both…
I present a concise review of the Higgs problem which plays a central role in particle physics today. The Higgs of the minimal Standard Model is so far just a conjecture that needs to be verified or discarded at the LHC. Probably the…
I show that with the discovery of the Higgs boson we have entered a new phase of our understanding of nature. This leads us towards a paradigm shift in the search for possible new physics, away from major extensions like supersymmetry…
Is the weak scale natural? This ever pending question makes the search for new particle production a highly motivated primary goal of the next LHC phase. These searches may or may not be successful. While waiting for a needed higher energy…
With the advent of the LHC, we will be able to probe New Physics (NP) up to energy scales almost one order of magnitude larger than it has been possible with present accelerator facilities. While direct detection of new particles will be…
The LHC will probe the nature of the vacuum that determines the properties of particles and the forces between them. Of particular importance is the fact that our current theories allow the Universe to be trapped in a metastable vacuum,…
A polarization test is applied to determine the spin and the parity of the observed resonance at LHC, which is believed to be the expected "Higgs" particle. The test is based on very general principles and is completely independent of…
The ``Gibbs Paradox'' refers to several related questions concerning entropy in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics: whether it is an extensive quantity or not, how it changes when identical particles are mixed, and the proper way to…
According to the long-standing received wisdom, a "small" value of the Higgs mass - as for instance implied by general unitarity constraints - is highly "unnatural" and essentially $\mbox{requires}$ new physics to be present at or near…
The observation of a new boson of mass $\sim 125\gev$ at the CERN LHC may finally have revealed the existence of a Higgs boson. Now we have the opportunity to scrutinize its properties, determining its quantum numbers and couplings to the…
The cleanest way to discover a new particle is generally the "bump-hunt" methodology: looking for a localised excess in a mass (or related) distribution. However, if the mass of the particle being discovered is not known the procedure of…
In this contribution to the proceedings of the 182nd Nobel Symposium, I reflect on the concept of "discovery" as it is used by physicists and astronomers. In particular, I comment on how the scientific community distinguishes discoveries…
One way of evaluating individual scientists is the determination of the number of highly cited publications, where the threshold is given by a large reference set. It is shown that this indicator behaves in a counterintuitive way, leading…
The crucial search for the Higgs boson at future colliders is capable of discovering the Standard Model Higgs, but is not guaranteed to discover a Higgs that decays nonstandardly. Such new physics is motivated by many aspects; from…
Nobody knows exactly what kind of Higgs physics will be unveiled when the Large Hadron Collider is turned on. There could be one Standard Model Higgs boson or five Higgs bosons as is the case in two-Higgs-doublet models; there could be more…
The LHC experiments ATLAS and CMS have discovered a new boson that resembles the long-sought Higgs boson: it cannot have spin one, and has couplings to other particles that increase with their masses, but the spin and parity remain to be…
In view of recent perturbative and nonperturbative evidence that the peak of the Higgs resonance saturates as the coupling increases, we examine the potential of the future Large Hadron Collider to discover a heavy Higgs resonance by gluon…
Detection of a signal in one of the standard LHC Higgs search channels does not guarantee that the particle discovered is the Standard Model (SM) Higgs. In this talk I survey some general classes of alternatives and ways to tell them apart.