Physicists have found the first evidence of the process by which the Higgs boson decays into a photon and a Z-boson.
Physicists have announced the possible discovery of a rare decay at the hadron collider. It is about the decay of the Higgs boson into a photon and a Z boson. The discovery was made by scientists at ATLAS and CMS, reports Phys.org.
According to the material, the decay of the Higgs boson is analogous to the process of decaying into two photons, which results in the appearance and disappearance of virtual particles. Their existence is limited by the uncertainty principle. Despite the fact that these particles are physically similar to ordinary particles, they cannot be found directly.
Scientists believe that among virtual particles, which appear as a result of Higgs boson decay, there are those that do not correspond to the standard model of elementary particle physics.
Doubts about the validity of the discovery are caused by the fact that in the analysis of data on proton-proton collisions during the second phase of the LHC Andron Collider, the statistical significance level of the discovery did not exceed 3.4 sigmas. At the same time, in particle physics, one can judge that it is not random with confidence only if the difference of five standard deviations was involved.
Also, the difference between the recorded decay rate and the rate predicted by the Standard Model was 1.9 sigma. This is also not a statistically significant result.