Old Stuff
SM Higgs: Underwhelmed and Not Convinced
Just a quick note on the "results" put out this morning with much fanfare by the Atlas and CMS collaborations at the LHC. Call me completely underwhelmed. Talk the previous week had been that at least one of them was in the high 3 sigma range yet in fact, we get 3.6 from Atlas and 2.4 from CMS before including LEE (look elsewhere effects). They do report p values which are consistent with expectations if a SM Higgs were aboiut 125 GeV but honestly, why was this result published? When including LEE, Atlas drops to 2.4 sigma and CMS to 1.9. Yes we can play the game of trying to combine the statistics from two different detectors to boost the reported confidence but at these low starting points is that not just GIGO? (Atlas data also show a spurious signal near 100 GeV where Higgs has already been excluded.) Ok, perhaps that is a bit harsh but you get my point.Unfortunately, the mainstream press is so wound up about this whole Higgs thing (and please don't ever refer to it as the "G" particle!) that they will make an even bigger deal out of the CERN presser than did the LHC groups. I think this is a bad day for HEP and tarnishes what have been traditionally for more stringent cuts on what is a major event and what is not (yet).
It may yet be that the SM Higgs is found about 125 GeV but I think it will take significantly more data, on the order of 10 fb-1
