Higgs huntgoeson

摘要

THE lure of the Higgs boson may keep the Large Hadron Collider smashing particles a while longer in a bid to nail the particle deemed to give all others their mass. Located near Geneva, Switzerland, the LHC has been colliding particles at an energy of 7 teraelectronvolts (TeV), half of its design energy. The plan was to collect data at this energy throughout 2011, then shut down the collider for 15 months to make the fixes needed to reach 14 TeV. Now the LHC's managers are considering delaying the shutdown to the end of 2012. This would give the LHC longer to turn up signs of the Higgs before its lengthy break.