Higgs quest deepens into realm of 'New Physics'

Two years after making history by unearthing the Higgs boson, the particle that confers mass, physicists are broadening their probe into its identity, hoping this will also solve other great cosmic mysteries.

Sifting through mountains of experimental data, they have now pieced together a partial sketch of the evasive boson's traits and behaviour.

But, some of them admit to be puzzled.

The better they become acquainted with the Higgs at the infinitely small quantum level, the further the experts seem from explaining certain cosmic-scale questions, like dark matter.

"The observed characteristics of the Higgs boson, such as its mass, interaction strengths and life-time, provide very powerful constraints on our understanding of the more fundamental theory," Valya Khoze, director of the Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology (IPPP) at Durham University, told AFP.

From next year, scientists will smash sub-atomic particles at ever higher-speeds in the upgraded Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, which announced the Higgs discovery on July 4, 2012.

Not only will they hope for new particles to emerge, but also for the Higgs to show signs of, well, weirdness.