Results are presented from searches for the standard model Higgs boson in proton-proton collisions at root s = 7 and 8 TeV in the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment at the LHC, using data samples corresponding to integrated luminosities of up to 5.1 fb(-1) at 7 TeV and 5.3 fb(-1) at 8 TeV. The search is performed in five decay modes: gamma gamma, ZZ, W+W-, tau(+)tau(-), and b (b) over bar. An excess of events is observed above the expected background, with a local significance of 5.0 standard deviations, at a mass near 125 GeV, signalling the production of a new particle. The expected significance for a standard model Higgs boson of that mass is 5.8 standard deviations. The excess is most significant in the two decay modes with the best mass resolution, gamma gamma and ZZ; a fit to these signals gives a mass of 125.3 +/- 0.4(stat.) +/- 0.5(syst.) GeV. The decay to two photons indicates that the new particle is a boson with spin different from one. (C) 2012 CERN. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

The Higgs boson was postulated nearly five decades ago within the framework of the standard model of particle physics and has been the subject of numerous searches at accelerators around the world. Its discovery would verify the existence of a complex scalar field thought to give mass to three of the carriers of the electroweak force—the W+, W–, and Z0 bosons—as well as to the fundamental quarks and leptons. The CMS Collaboration has observed, with a statistical significance of five standard deviations, a new particle produced in proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The evidence is strongest in the diphoton and four-lepton (electrons and/or muons) final states, which provide the best mass resolution in the CMS detector. The probability of the observed signal being due to a random fluctuation of the background is about 1 in 3 × 106. The new particle is a boson with spin not equal to 1 and has a mass of about 125 giga–electron volts. Although its measured properties are, within the uncertainties of the present data, consistent with those expected of the Higgs boson, more data are needed to elucidate the precise nature of the new particle

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The top quark was discovered in 1995 at the Fermilab National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab). One way to confirm if the observed top quark is really the top quark posited in the Standard Model (SM) is to measure its electric charge. In the Standard Model the top quark is the isospin partner of the bottom quark and is expected to have a charge of +2/3. However, an alternative "exotic" model has been proposed with a fourth generation exotic quark that has the same characteristics, such as mass, as our observed top but with a charge of -4/3. This thesis presents the first CDF measurement of the top quark's charge via its decay products, a W boson and a bottom quark, using ≈ 1f b −1 of data. The data were collected by the CDF detector from proton anti-proton (pp) collisions at √ s = 1.96 TeV at Fermilab.We classify events depending on the charges of the bottom quark and associated W boson and count the number of events which appear "SM-like" or "exotic-like" with a SM-like event decaying as t → W + b and an exotic event as t → W − b. We find the p-value under the Standard Model hypothesis to be 0.35 which is consistent with the Standard Model. We exclude the exotic quark hypothesis at an 81% confidence level, for which we have chosen a priori that the probability of incorrectly rejecting the SM would be 1%. The calculated Bayes Factor (BF) is 2×Ln(BF)=8.54 which is interpreted as the data strongly favors the Standard Model over the exotic quark hypothesis.