prof. dr hab. David Blaschke

The Higgs - a fundamental particle?

The LHC experiments ATLAS and CMS have reported the observation of a previously unknown boson with a mass between 125 and 127 GeV, whose behaviour so far has been consistent with the Higgs boson of the Standard Model (previous IFT seminar by L. Turko). After reviewing the concept of the Standard Model Higgs, I will present some alternative models where the scalar Higgs boson is not a fundamental but rather a composite particle. Particularly interesting seem concepts where the role of the Higgs field is played by strongly bound pairs of fermions, e.g., so-called techniquarks (technicolor models) or top quarks (top quark condensate). This discussion will be presented from a non-insider perspective owing to the actuality of the problem.