From a boson to the standard model Higgs: a case study in confirmation and model dynamics

Synthese 198 (Suppl 16):3779-3811 (2019)
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Abstract

Our paper studies the anatomy of the discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider and its influence on the broader model landscape of particle physics. We investigate the phases of this discovery, which led to a crucial reconfiguration of the model landscape of elementary particle physics and eventually to a confirmation of the standard model. A keyword search of preprints covering the electroweak symmetry breaking sector of particle physics, along with an examination of physicists own understanding of the discovery as documented in semiannual conferences, has allowed us an empirical investigation of its model dynamics. From our analyses we draw two main philosophical lessons concerning the nature of scientific reasoning in a complex experimental and theoretical environment. For one, from a confirmation standpoint, some SM alternatives could be considered even more confirmed by the Higgs discovery than the SM. Nevertheless, the SM largely remains the commonly accepted account of EWSB. We present criteria for comparing degrees of confirmation and expose some limits of a purely logical approach to understanding the Higgs discovery as a victory for the SM. Second, we understand the persistence of SM alternatives in the face of disfavourable evidence by borrowing the Lakatosian concept of a research programme, where the core idea behind a group of models survives, while other aspects adapt to incoming data. In order to apply this framework to the model landscape of EWSB, we must introduce a new category of research programme, the model-group, and we test its viability using the example of composite Higgs models.

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Author Profiles

Cristin Chall
University of South Carolina
Martin King
Universität Bonn

References found in this work

Conjectures and Refutations.K. Popper - 1963 - Les Etudes Philosophiques 21 (3):431-434.
Conjectures and Refutations.Karl Popper - 1963 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 19 (2):159-168.
Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes.Imre Lakatos - 1970 - In Imre Lakatos & Alan Musgrave (eds.), Criticism and the growth of knowledge. Cambridge [Eng.]: Cambridge University Press. pp. 91-196.

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