The discovery of the Higgs boson in its decays into two Z bosons and into two photons by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) marks an important milestone in the test of the Standard Model of particle physics. The Higgs boson had been the last particle of the Standard Model to be observed experimentally.
In spite of its great success in describing particle reactions the Standard Model is known to be incomplete. It does not contain the particles of the dark matter in the universe, for example. The precise measurement of the properties of the Higgs boson decays into pairs of Z bosons can provide the scientists with hints of the properties of the complete theory of elementary particles. Also motivated by the recent observation of an unexpected excess of events with two photons at a particle mass of 750 GeV, searches for new Higgs-like heavy particles decaying into Z boson pairs are pursued.
At the ATLAS Higgs-ZZ Workshop particle physicists from the ATLAS experiment will discuss how to search for extensions of the Standard Model most efficiently and most effectively. On Friday, April 29th, they will also meet with renowned theoretical physicists, to widen the discussion.
Contact:
Dr. Sandra Kortner
Max Planck Institute for Physics
+49 89 32354-288
sandra@mpp.mpg.de