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Title: Particle physics Post by: Lisa Wolfe on October 12, 2010, 01:17:56 pm (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/CMS_Higgs-event.jpg) A simulated event in the CMS detector of the Large Hadron Collider, featuring a possible appearance of the Higgs boson. A simulated event at the CMS particle detector of the LHC of the european particle physics institute, CERN. This simulation depicts the decay of a Higgs particle following a collision of two protons in the CMS experiment.[1] More CMS events at CMS Media Particle physics is the study of the elementary constituents of matter and energy, and the interactions between them. It may also be called "high energy physics", because many elementary particles do not occur naturally, but are created only during high energy collisions of other particles, as can be detected in particle accelerators. Currently, the interactions of elementary particles are described by the Standard Model. The model accounts for the 12 known particles of matter (quarks and leptons) that interact via the strong, weak, and electromagnetic fundamental forces. Dynamics are described in terms of matter particles exchanging force carrier particles (gluons, W and Z bosons, and photons, respectively). The Standard Model also predicts a particle known as the Higgs boson, the existence of which has not yet been verified; as of 2010[update], searches for it are underway in the Tevatron at Fermilab and in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. |