Florida Tech Professor to Give Particle Physics Lecture about Elusive Higgs Boson Feb. 24

MELBOURNE, FLA.—As part of the Astronomy and Astrophysics Public Lecture Series, the Florida Institute of Technology Department of Physics and Space Sciences (DPSS) will host a presentation by DPSS Professor Marc Baarmand. He will present “Got Higgs?” Feb. 24, from 8 to 9 p.m. in the F.W. Olin Engineering Complex, Room EC118. The free presentation will be held on campus. Weather permitting, rooftop public star viewing will follow.

All matter particles are believed to acquire their mass through interaction with the Higgs field. The hypothetical Higgs boson has long been sought by physicists; in fact, its discovery is one of the primary reasons the Large Hadron Collider (LHC, the world’s largest and highest-energy particle accelerator) of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN, Geneva, Switzerland) was built.

The physics of subatomic particles and the LHC have been in the news lately. When the LHC started to operate back in 2010, particle physicists piqued public curiosity when they promised a new age of discovery, particularly a possible resolution to the age-old mystery of the origin of mass, namely the discovery of the Higgs boson. After a year of collecting data in 2011, the LHC experiments have shown no sign of the elusive Higgs although there are tantalizing hints it might be around the corner.

Baarmand is an internationally known expert in high-energy particle physics. When he came to Florida Tech in 2000, he brought with him an experimental particle physics program based on research with the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) at CERN. His research is supported through several grants from the United States Department of Energy.

The F.W. Olin Engineering Complex is located on West University Boulevard. For more information, call (321) 674-7207or visitwww.fit.edu/aapls.