The idea that the universe might be filled with scalar fields to explain why fundamental particles are not all massless was born, and incorporated into the highly successful Standard Model of fundamental particles and interactions, nearly 50 years ago. Until this summer there remained one unconfirmed prediction of this model, the existence of a massive particle with the same quantum numbers as the vacuum: the Higgs boson. The confirmation or falsification of this prediction is one of the highlights of the physics program of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. I discuss the recent experimental evidence for the existence of the Higgs Boson, concentrating on results from the ATLAS experiment.

Argonne Physics Division Colloquium Schedule