Even with the most optimistic assumptions, the combined CDF/DO data set has projected a no more than 50% chance of seeing even a THREE sigma anomaly in the region most favoured by the electroweak radiative correction fits (ie. not much above the direct LEP limit, and where LEP itself has already seen an “indication” at just under 3 sigma). When ATLAS and CMS have between them a solid five sigma discovery to announce, then the papers will come out [I’m willing to bet that you can count on CERN management to enforce this much self-discipline}, and then we’ll know.

Is it really worth spending many tens of millions of dollars to add the Tevatron to LEP on the list of “indication but not able to really say anything definite” accelerators that were unable to either discover or definitively rule out the Higgs, or would that money be better spent planning and preparing a future for Fermilab that lasts longer than the next two years? I see this recent round of Fermilab publicity as more an admission of real concern about the prospects for “Project X”, than as useful information concerning prospects for an actual Higgs discovery.

P.S. There are a hell of a lot of americans working on ATLAS and CMS. In fact there are more american CERN users than there are of any other nationality. So the Higgs discovery will in a very real sense be an “american discovery” (shared with other nations), even though it will almost certainly actually occur at CERN.

http://www.google.com/search?q=140+GeV/c^2

So 3\sigma is considered evidence for? What is considered as a discovery?

Thanks for the blog, P