Toronto experts lead particle collider discovery

Physicists from the University of Toronto announced the discovery of more new particles at Switzerland's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at a press conference Monday in Paris.

The Canadian researchers, working with 3,000 international colleagues, announced that after just three months of successful operations several familiar particles have been "re-discovered."

"Perhaps most importantly, it means that the LHC is now the discovery machine for the next decade," said U of T physicist Pekka Sinervo in a press release.

The discoveries confirm physicists are on the right track to find the Higgs Boson particle, which some call the God particle. The Higgs Boson would confirm the Standard Model theory, and explain why particles exhibit the mass they do, and how they came to be.

The scientists studying the LHC results are also hoping to understand dark matter, the mysterious substance that dominates the universe.

The results will be discussed further when the University of Toronto hosts the 2010 international Hadron Collider Physics Symposium.