US lab clears Higgs hunt hurdle

US lab clears Higgs hunt hurdle
 
abercrombie ukAn expert panel has recommended extending the lifetime of a US "particle smasher" by three years.This will allow the Tevatron accelerator in Illinois to continue its hunt for the elusive Higgs boson particle. The panel proposes the facility continues operating until 2014, pitching it against the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in the race to find the Higgs.The Higgs is a sub-atomic particle crucial to current theories of physics.On Tuesday, the High Energy Physics Advisory Panel (Hepap) committee voted by 14 votes to one to keep running the Tevatron until 2014. Hepap reports to the US Department of Energy and is the highest panel in the US making recommendations on future particle physics projects.The Tevatron is operated by the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab).The US machine and the Europe-based LHC are competing to be first to identify the Higgs. But extending the lifetime of the US accelerator is a potential game-changer. ...