The Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism and its scalar boson

Abstract

The Brout-Englert-Higgs (BEH)mechanism extending spontaneous symmetry breaking to gauge fields had a considerable impact on both theoretical and experimental elementary particle physics. It is corroborated by the discovery of the Z and the W, and by the precision electroweak tests. The recent detection by the LHC at CERN of a particle identifiable to its massive BEH scalar boson not only constitutes a direct verification of the mechanism, but detailed analysis of its different decay processes may yield indications on the world hitherto hidden beyond the Standard Model. These topics are discussed with emphasis on conceptual issues. [Editors note: for a video of the talk given by Prof. Englert at the Aharonov-80 conference in 2012 at Chapman University, see quantum.chapman.edu/talk-2.]