Fermilab invites reporters to July 2 briefing on worldwide hunt for Higgs particle

List of Chicago-area Higgs experts included below 

Batavia, Ill. – Particle physics is making worldwide headlines again as the search for a new particle - the Higgs boson - heats up. Scientists working on the Tevatron experiments at Fermilab will announce their latest Higgs search results on July 2. Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider have announced that they will unveil their latest findings on July 4.

At a Q&A session at Fermilab on Monday, July 2, at 10:30 a.m., experts will answer reporters&rsquo ; questions: What is the Higgs particle and why are scientists around the world hot on its trail? Why do Tevatron scientists have new results even though the machine was shut down in 2011? How are U.S. scientists involved in the Large Hadron Collider and the world’s most anticipated particle discovery? Find out what all the fuss is about and get your Higgs boson and particle collider questions answered at this informational briefing at Fermilab, located in Batavia, Illinois.

Reporters planning to attend the Q&A session on Monday, July 2, should contact Kurt Riesselmann, media@fnal.gov or 630-840-3351, by Friday, June 29.

Reporters will also have the opportunity to tour Fermilab’s remote operations center for the Large Hadron Collider and learn how U.S. physicists are involved in the search for the Higgs particle at the LHC.

Physicists from the Chicago area’s two Department of Energy national laboratories, Fermilab and Argonne National Laboratory, play leading roles in the search for the Higgs boson. The particle was first proposed in the 1960s as a way to explain how the particles we know – the building blocks of matter – acquire their masses. Scientists have been on the hunt for the elusive boson ever since, at a series of ever-more-complex particle accelerators and detectors. As Tevatron scientists present their final Higgs search results, the focus of the Higgs hunt shifts to the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator, operating in a 17-mile tunnel 300 feet underground near Geneva. More than 1,700 U.S. scientists work on the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider.

Here is a list of Chicago-area scientists who will be available to answer reporters’ questions about the Higgs boson hunt at the Tevatron and the LHC:

Richard Cavanaugh, scientist from the University of Illinois at Chicago and Fermilab working on the Large Hadron Collider. Contact: cavanaug@fnal.gov; 352-871-4578

Dmitri Denisov, Fermilab physicist and leader of the DZero experiment at Fermilab’s Tevatron. Contact: denisovd@fnal.gov; 630-531-0413

Jacobo Konigsberg, University of Florida physicist involved with the search for the Higgs boson at Fermilab’s Tevatron and at the Large Hadron Collider. Contact: konigsberg@fnal.gov; 773-885-1669

Tom Le Compte, Argonne National Laboratory physicist working on the Large Hadron Collider. Contact: lecompte@anl.gov; 630-252-1634

Joe Lykken, Fermilab theoretical physicist. Contact: lykken@fnal.gov; 630-840-4689

Rob Roser, Fermilab physicist and leader of the CDF experiment at Fermilab’s Tevatron. Contact: roser@fnal.gov; 630-399-2609

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