ABSTRACT
Higgs boson searches became the exclusive endeavor of high-energy physics. Dedicated experimentation, as well as the confirmation of the W and Z bosons and the top quark, limited the mass of the Higgs to less than 1 TeV, within the reach of present-day particle accelerator and detector technologies. CERN, after evaluating the associated merits and complications, moved to a high-energy, high-intensity Large Hadron Collider (LHC) proton–proton collider to expand its hunt for the Higgs boson and other interesting physics. Common to all high-energy experiments, the search for the Higgs boson at LHC began with a theoretical analysis. The preferred decay mode might be the one where the Higgs becomes a Z boson and photon, because it offers good resolution. The bottom part of the graph shows the final “peak” formed from a handful of possible Higgs boson appearances, after the background noise is subtracted away.
