Thread: LHC

Why do the protons have a collision energy of 14 TeV when there is only a range of 114-180 GeV needed for the Higgs Boson. Surely just a little (I use that term lightly) over the 180 GeV range would do wouldn't it?

Also, if anyone has any links for a site with the decay channel of the Higgs Boson that'd be a real help.

Cheers

Since the protons are positively charged and repel each other, I imagine a lot of energy is lost right before the actual collision. This is really just a guess though, so maybe someone who knows a bit more can confirm this (or not).

That is correct, but we are not only looking for the higgs particle. We are also looking at other types of exotic matter, such as dark matter, but even more importantly we are trying to find out if gravity moves towards uniting with the other 3 forces of nature; the only way of doing this is at these kind of energies. We should also see the unfolding of other spatial dimensions, should they truly exist.