The Case of the ‘750 GeV’: Exploring ‘non-discovery’ and Transformations in High Energy Experimental Physics at the Large Hadron Collider

• In Event: Something from Nothing: Exploring Non-discovery and Negative Claims

Abstract

The 750 GeV had a short life span: from a potential revolutionary new particle in 2015, to nothing but a statistical fluke in 2016. Two experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva, the 3000 member ATLAS and CMS collaborations, each reported seeing a bump in the data of low statistical significance, indicating hints of revolutionary new physics in December 2015. This triggered the writing of hundreds of theoretical physics papers before the collaborations announced in October 2016 that the potential revolution was over. By that time, the 750 GeV had a Wikipedia page and over 500 theory papers dedicated to its explanation. Importantly, the non-discovery violated a decade of high expectations that some new physics would be found at the LHC in their 2015-2016 data.

This paper asks what may be considered to have changed when a potential revolution ends. After a discovery claim is established, the world is reported to be different; by contrast, when something is lost which was never had, seemingly nothing has changed. Drawing on interviews with some of the key experimental physicists involved in the search for, analysis of, and ultimate non-discovery of the 750 GeV, this paper explores the shift in research strategies and their reflections after the episode. In particular, the paper explores how the absence of direction in research strategies, which the 750 GeV could have provided, was and is being accommodated, both experimentally and theoretically.

Author

• Sophie Ritson, Alpen-Adria Universität Klagenfurt / Wien / Graz