Elusive particles Elementary particles remain as fascinating as ever. From the hunt for the elusive Higgs boson to the false alarm about faster-than-light neutrinos, 2011 was yet another eventful scientific year. The hunt for the Higgs boson and decay of B mesons: first results from the LHC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ After several hundred million collisions, the first results from CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) were announced in 2011. Firstly, scientists are closing in on the famous Higgs boson, the particle that could explain why particles have mass. The Atlas and CMS experiments have ruled out the possibility of its mass being in the range between 130 and-600 GeV. Researchers are now hoping to find it in the range 115-130 GeV. Meanwhile, the LHCb collaboration has achieved the most accurate measurements of B mesons ever, showing that their decay is in perfect agreement with the predictions of the Standard Model. Although this does not exclude the possibility of a new physics, it constrains the corresponding theoretical models. Researchers are interested in B mesons as they make it possible to study the asymmetry between matter and antimatter. Quark specialists get together The 22nd edition of the Quark Matter conference was held in Annecy, Photograph of the LHC, including a 3D cutaway image of the inside of the machine. France, on 23-28 May 2011. The world’s leading experts discussed the subatomic structure of matter, and how it evolved after the Big Bang. They also touched on recent technological developments that provide Spiral2 facility will churn out exotic nuclei insight into Nature at its most fundamental levels. The highlight of the conference was the presentation of the very first results from collisions The construction of the Spiral2 linear accelerator at the French large heavy- of lead nuclei carried out at the LHC. ion accelerator (GANIL), in Caen, is now underway. Providing some of the most intense ion beams in the world, the accelerator will produce exotic Quark Matter conference, Annecy (France) 23-28 May 2011 nuclei that do not exist in the natural state on Earth. This is a national priority project for the French Atomic Energy and Alternative Energies Commission (CEA) and for CNRS. It will make it possible to perform novel experiments that could open new horizons for nuclear physics and astrophysics. 38 A year at CNRS 2011
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