Perspectives on Higgs Physics II

Book excerpt: The Standard Model of particle physics is extremely successful in describing nature. It is, however, incomplete in one major way: the masses of gauge bosons and fermions enter the Standard Model through the Higgs mechanism. That is completely satisfactory technically, but it is not understood physically. We do not yet know what nature really does to give mass to particles. Understanding Higgs physics is necessary in order to complete the Standard Model, and to learn how to extend it and improve its foundations.This book is a collection of current work and thinking about these questions by active workers. It speculates about what form the answers will take, as well as updates and extends previous books and reviews. Some chapters emphasize theoretical questions, some focus on connections with other areas of physics, and some discuss how we can get data to uncover nature's solution. This second edition adds information and insights from the last five years, including the recent indirect but statistically significant evidence for the existence of a Higgs boson from precision measurements. It contains contributions from Blondel, Quiros, Haber, Pokorski, Dawson, Janot, Mrenna, Gunion, Ibanez, Ross, Bigi, Carena, Wagner, Georgi, Chanowitz, Yuan, Hill, and others.