Event



Primakoff Lecture: Deciphering the Higgs boson: insights and revelations a decade after the discovery

Andreas Hoecker (CERN)
- | David Rittenhouse Laboratory, A8
An image of Andreas Hoecker standing before a colorful wall

The discovery of the Higgs boson by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) marks a breakthrough in particle physics, and it stands with the greatest scientific discoveries of all time. The Higgs boson is a ripple of a scalar field that gives mass to elementary particles, thereby governing the structure of atoms, molecules, and biological life. Measurements at the LHC, many of which surpassing the expected instrumental sensitivity, have yielded spectacular insights into the new particle’s characteristics. In this lecture, I will introduce and review the current landscape of Higgs boson physics, highlight key measurements made, discuss their significance for our understanding of the universe’s fate, and outline remaining secrets and how to address them.