US collider finds further evidence of Higgs boson

Science : Scientists analyzing data from the now-defunct Tevatron particle accelerator in Batavia, Illinois, say they have found hints of the elusive Higgs boson . The finding lends support to last year’s announcement from CERN of its tentative Higgs detection. The two accelerators use different procedures to gather data. The Tevatron, which shut down permanently in September 2011, smashed protons into antiprotons; CERN’s Large Hadron Collider smashed protons into protons. Researchers then study what the high-energy particles decay into. Because of the accelerators’ different methods, detectors, and decay channels, the two findings reinforce each other. This year the CERN team hopes to produce three times as much data as in 2011 and thus be able to definitively confirm or deny the Higgs’s existence.