Particle physics at the LHC start

Abstract

I present a concise review of the major issues and challenges in particle physics at the start of the LHC era. After a brief overview of the Standard Model and of QCD, I will focus on the electroweak symmetry breaking problem which plays a central role in particle physics today. The Higgs sector of the minimal Standard Model is so far just a mere conjecture that needs to be verified or discarded by the LHC. Probably the reality is more complicated. I will summarize the motivation for new physics that should accompany or even replace the Higgs discovery and a number of its possible forms that could be revealed by the LHC.