The Higgs Boson in the Standard Model - From LEP to LHC: Expectations, Searches, and Discovery of a Candidate

TL;DR

This review covers the theoretical background, experimental searches, and discovery of the Higgs boson across colliders from LEP to LHC, highlighting the progress and key findings in understanding this fundamental particle.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of Higgs boson phenomenology, search strategies, and the eventual discovery of a Higgs-like particle at the LHC, integrating past experiments and theoretical insights.

Findings

Higgs boson production mechanisms and predictions

Experimental search strategies at LEP, Tevatron, and LHC

Observation of a Higgs-like boson at the LHC

Abstract

The quest for the Higgs boson of the Standard Model, which was a cornerstone in the physics programme at particle colliders operating at the energy frontier for several decades, is the subject of this review. After reviewing the formulation of electroweak symmetry breaking via the Higgs mechanism within the Standard Model, the phenomenology of the Higgs boson at colliders and the theoretical and phenomenological constraints on the Standard Model Higgs sector are discussed. General remarks on experimental searches and the methodology of statistical interpretation are followed by a description of the phenomenology of Higgs-boson production and the corresponding precise predictions. The strategies of the experimental searches and their findings are discussed for the Large Electron Positron Collider (LEP) at CERN, the proton-antiproton collider Tevatron at Fermilab, and the proton-proton Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. The article concludes with the description of the observation of a Higgs-like boson at the LHC.