To be or not to be: Higgs impostors at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper discusses the challenges in distinguishing the true Higgs boson from impostors at the LHC, emphasizing the importance of scrutiny in confirming discoveries and understanding the particle's nature.

Contribution

It highlights the conceptual link between discovery and scrutiny, proposing that detailed analysis can both confirm the Higgs and reveal potential impostors.

Findings

Scrutiny accelerates understanding of new particles.

Distinguishing Higgs from impostors requires detailed analysis.

Deeper scrutiny can lead to faster discovery confirmation.

Abstract

Consider the day when an invariant mass peak, roughly compatible with "the Higgs", begins to emerge, say at the LHC, ... and may you see that day. There will be a difference between discovery and scrutiny. The latter would involve an effort to ascertain what it is, or is not, that has been found. It turns out that the two concepts are linked: Scrutiny will naturally result in deeper knowledge - is this what you were all looking for? - but may also speed up discovery.