The Higgs boson is a fundamental particle associated with the Higgs field, a quantum field that is responsible for giving mass to other fundamental particles. Its discovery in 2012 at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) confirmed a key part of the Standard Model of particle physics.
According to theory, the universe is filled with an invisible energy field called the Higgs field. As particles like electrons, quarks, and W/Z bosons move through this field, they interact with it to varying degrees. This interaction slows them down, and this resistance to movement is what we interpret as mass.
- Particles that interact strongly with the Higgs field (like the top quark) gain more mass.
- Particles that interact weakly (like the electron) gain less mass.
- Some particles (like the photon) do not interact with the Higgs field at all and remain massless.
The Higgs boson is essentially a quantum excitation of the Higgs field—like a ripple in the field that we can detect. It was the last missing piece of the Standard Model and was theorized in the 1960s by Peter Higgs and others, but it took nearly 50 years to find experimental evidence of its existence due to its massive energy and rare interactions.
The discovery of the Higgs boson was a major scientific milestone, as it:
- Explained why particles have mass,
- Validated the mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking,
- Opened new avenues for exploring physics beyond the Standard Model, such as dark matter and supersymmetry.