'Dark universe' beckons as research target after Higgs boson wins Nobel

British physicist Peter Higgs (R) shakes hands with Belgium physicist Francois Englert before a scientific seminar to deliver the latest update in the search for the Higgs boson at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Meyrin near Geneva July 4, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Denis Balibouse

By Robert Evans

GENEVA | Tue Oct 8, 2013 2:54pm EDT

GENEVA (Reuters) - With the Higgs boson in the bag, the head of the CERN research center urged scientists on Tuesday to push on to unveil the "dark universe" - the hidden stuff that makes up 95 per cent of the cosmos and is still a mystery to earthbound researchers.

Rolf Heuer spoke after the Nobel physics prize went to Briton Peter Higgs and Belgian Francois Englert for predicting the existence of the Higgs boson particle, which explains how fundamental matter got the mass to form stars and planets.

"We have now completed the Standard Model," Heuer told reporters, referring to the portrait of the known universe drafted in the 1980s.

"It is high time for us to go on to the dark universe," added the director general of the world's main institution focusing on the basic particles of nature, based near Geneva.

The Higgs boson and its associated force field were among the last major building blocks of that model of how the cosmos works.

Their existence was confirmed, after three decades, when the particle was seen last year in CERN's underground particle smasher, the giant Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

The LHC, now in the middle of a two-year refit and upgrade, is due to resume operations in early 2015 with its power doubled.

"That will open promising territory into new physics," Heuer's deputy Sergio Bertolucci said. New physics is the term used by scientists for the realms beyond the Standard Model that currently remain as elusive as science-fiction.

SUPER-SYMMETRY EYED

First among these - highlighted in Nobel acceptance comments by Englert - is super-symmetry, the theory that all basic particles have a heavier but invisible partner, which is linked to concepts like string theory and extra dimensions.

No sign of super-symmetry has yet appeared in CERN's collider, leading some science writers to voice doubts about the concept.

But Heuer said that just because it was elusive did not mean it did not exist. "It took us 30 years to find the Higgs," he added.

The LHC, in its 27-kilometre (17-mile) circular tunnel under a corner of Switzerland and France, was conceived in the early 1990s at a time when particle physicists, astrophysicists and cosmologists were increasingly talking together.

The interchange between experts in once separate fields has brought theories about the universe and its nature - as well as what came before and whether there are parallel undetected worlds - into sharper focus.

This has also been fueled by the increasing power of telescopes, allowing scientists to detect indirectly that there must be some strange substance massing around the galaxies to keep them together. This has become known as dark matter because it cannot be seen, although its effects are evident.

Recent measurements by the European Space Agency's satellite-borne Planck telescope found dark matter accounted for 27 percent of the universe and the even more enigmatic dark energy - driving galaxies apart - 68.3 percent.

Visible matter in open space - galaxies, stars and planets - accounts for just 5 percent.

String theory says particles are in fact tiny oscillating strings that can appear differently depending on how they are viewed. It requires multiple extra dimensions that have yet to be detected.

The theory, which has partly morphed into the M-theory espoused by British scientist Stephen Hawking, has fierce critics. It also allows for parallel universes - a multiverse where universes spring into existence and die spontaneously.

"But proving that," says CERN theoretician James Wells, "won't come in our lifetime."

(Editing by Andrew Heavens)

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Higgs boson, key to the universe, wins Nobel physics prize

1 of 8. Belgian physicist Francois Englert reacts as he appears at the balcony of his house in Brussels October 8, 2013, after he and Britain's Peter Higgs won the 2013 Nobel prize for physics.

Credit: Reuters/Yves Herman

By Simon Johnson and Johan Ahlander

STOCKHOLM | Tue Oct 8, 2013 7:44pm EDT

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Britain's Peter Higgs and Francois Englert of Belgium won the Nobel Prize for physics on Tuesday for predicting the existence of the Higgs boson particle that explains how elementary matter attained the mass to form stars and planets.

The insight has been hailed as one of the most important in the understanding of the cosmos. Without the Higgs mechanism all particles would travel at the speed of light and atoms would not exist.

Half a century after the scientists' original prediction, the new building block of nature was finally detected in 2012 at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) centre's giant, underground particle-smasher near Geneva.

"I am overwhelmed to receive this award," said Higgs, who is known to shun the limelight and did not appear in public on Tuesday despite winning the world's top science prize.

"I hope this recognition of fundamental science will help raise awareness of the value of blue-sky research," he said in a statement via the University of Edinburgh where he works.

The two scientists had been favorites to share the 8 million Swedish crown ($1.25 million) prize after their theoretical work was vindicated by the CERN experiments.

To find the elusive particle, scientists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) had to pore over data from the wreckage of trillions of sub-atomic proton collisions.

The Higgs boson is the last piece of the Standard Model of physics that describes the fundamental make-up of the universe. Some commentators - though not scientists - have called it the "God particle", for its role in turning the Big Bang into an ordered cosmos.

Higgs' and Englert's work shows how elementary particles inside atoms gain mass by interacting with an invisible field pervading all of space - and the more they interact, the heavier they become. The particle associated with the field is the Higgs boson.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the prize went to Higgs and Englert for work fundamental to describing how the universe is constructed.

"According to the Standard Model, everything, from flowers and people to stars and planets, consists of just a few building blocks: matter particles."

REMAINING QUESTIONS

Although finding the Higgs boson is a remarkable achievement - and one which Higgs once said he never expected to see in his lifetime - it is not the end of the story for physicists trying to understand the structure of the universe.

Scientists are now grappling with other mysteries such as understanding the nature of dark matter, which accounts for more than a quarter of the universe, and dark energy, which is believed to be the driver of cosmic expansion.

Asked how it felt to be a Nobel winner, Englert told reporters by phone link to Stockholm: "You may imagine that this is not very unpleasant, of course. I am very, very happy to have the recognition of this extraordinary award."

CERN Director General Rolf Heuer said he was "thrilled" that the Nobel prize had gone to particle physics. He said the discovery of the Higgs boson at CERN last year marked "the culmination of decades of intellectual effort by many people around the world".

Some physicists were surprised that there was no recognition for the CERN teams that discovered the new particle, since there had been speculation of a prize for CERN as an institution.

The will of Swedish dynamite millionaire Alfred Nobel limits the award to a maximum of three people - harking back to an earlier era when science was conducted by individuals or very small teams.

However, thousands worked on detecting the particle at CERN and a total of six scientists published relevant papers in 1964.

Englert, 80, and his colleague Robert Brout - who died in 2011 - were first to publish; but the now 84-year-old Higgs followed just a couple of weeks later and was the first to explicitly predict the existence of a new particle.

Similar proposals from American researchers Carl Hagen and Gerald Guralnik and Britain's Tom Kibble appeared shortly afterwards.

Kibble said it was no surprise that he and his colleagues were not included in the Nobel honor since "our paper was unquestionably the last of the three to be published in Physical Review Letters in 1964 - though we naturally regard our treatment as the most thorough and complete".

(Additional reporting by Mia Shanley and Niklas Pollard in Stockholm, Ben Hirschler in London and Robert Evans in Geneva; Editing by Alistair Scrutton, Kate Kelland and Ralph Boulton)

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Two Higgs boson scientists tipped for Nobel prize

By Ben Hirschler

LONDON | Wed Sep 25, 2013 12:01am EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Two scientists who predicted the existence of the Higgs boson - the mysterious particle that explains why elementary matter has mass - are Thomson Reuters' top tips to win this year's Nobel prize in physics.

Recognition for a discovery that made headlines worldwide will come as no surprise, but deciding who deserves the glory is a tricky matter for the prize committee, which will announce its winner or winners on October 8.

The will of Alfred Nobel limits the prize to a maximum of three people. Yet six scientists published relevant papers in 1964, and thousands more have worked to detect the Higgs at the CERN research centre's giant particle-smasher near Geneva.

The consensus is that the award will go to the theoretical physicists whose work has finally been vindicated - and, as Belgium's Robert Brout died in 2011, there are now five contenders. The prize cannot be given posthumously.

Of these, the two likely winners are Britain's Peter Higgs - after whom the particle was named - and Brout's colleague and countryman Francois Englert, according to Thomson Reuters' Nobel prediction expert David Pendlebury.

His predictions are based on how often a scientist's published work is cited by other researchers, and his system has accurately forecast 27 Nobel prize winners since 2002.

Pendlebury believes Higgs, 84, and Englert, 80, are the logical winners this time. Although Brout and Englert were first to publish in 1964, Higgs was second and he was also the first person to explicitly predict the existence of a new particle.

Similar proposals from American researchers Carl Hagen and Gerald Guralnik and Britain's Tom Kibble appeared shortly after, but their papers have garnered fewer citations over the years.

There was speculation of a Nobel prize for the Higgs discovery last year, after detection of a boson at CERN in July 2012. But that preliminary data needed to be confirmed, which only happened earlier this year.

"It seems to me that with the confirmation in March of the experimental results at CERN, it is not difficult to make a strong wager that the discovery will be honored this year," Pendlebury said.

Half a century may seem a long time to wait for a Nobel prize but, as the experimental evidence is only just in, an award next month would actually be speedy by Nobel standards.

The sense of urgency reflects the importance of the finding - the Higgs boson is the last piece of the Standard Model that describes the fundamental make-up of the universe - but also the fact that both Higgs and Englert are now in their 80s.

Other Nobel prizes will be awarded next month for medicine, chemistry and economics, as well as for literature and peace.

Notable Thomson Reuters nominees in the economics arena include Sam Peltzman and Richard Posner of the University of Chicago for their research on theories of regulation.

In medicine, those tipped include Adrian Bird, Howard Cedar and Aharon Razin, from Britain and Israel, for work on a process known as DNA methylation, which helps determine how and when genes in the body are switched on.

Among potential chemistry winners are U.S. scientists M.G. Finn, Valery Fokin and Barry Sharpless for developing so-called "click chemistry", which has applications in diagnostics and in making surface coatings with unusual properties.

Pendlebury's citation-based system predicts outstanding researchers whose work could earn them a Nobel prize either this year or in the future.

(Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

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