Physicists bet they’re homing in on Higgs
Illinois lab issues its last word on the long-sought particle
As physicists in Europe prep for a major announcement about the long-sought Higgs particle, U.S. scientists are not going gentle into that good night. Researchers at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois have squeezed out the last drop of analysis on their own data — and concluded that the Higgs, if it exists, should have a mass between 115 and 135 billion electron volts.
![](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/16109.jpg?resize=300%2C200&ssl=1)
That range, reported July 2, is not substantially different from earlier reports. It fits with hints reported by the European laboratory CERN in December, which suggested the Higgs might have a mass around 125 billion electron volts (SN: 12/31/11, p. 10). A proton has a mass of around 1 billion electron volts.