On Wednesday, July 4, the particle physics CERN lab in Geneva will announce whether scientists have discovered the highly anticipated Higgs boson.  The announcement is set for 2 a.m. CDT, Wednesday, July 4 (9 a.m. CEST in Geneva).

SMU physicists are available for live or taped interviews in Switzerland and in Dallas after the announcement. They can answer questions about the scientific search for the so-called “God” particle.

The SMU physicists are members of the international scientific consortium operating the world’s largest physics experiment, the Large Hadron Collider, where they search for the Higgs.

The leader and principal investigator for SMU’s team of collider physicists is Ryszard Stroynowski, who plays a key role in hunting for the Higgs. For Stroynowski, looking for the elusive Higgs is akin to reconstructing an aviation accident by reverse engineering the pieces to identify the type of aircraft that went down. Stroynowski is available for live or taped interviews in Dallas.

SMU physicist Stephen Sekula, an assistant physics professor, and SMU postdoctoral fellow Aiden Randle-Conde, will be live blogging the announcement at CERN beginning around 5 a.m. Sekula and Randle-Conde are available for interviews, including via Skype, after the announcement. They will live blog at http://bit.ly/Mdv4I3 .

Also, Sekula and Randle-Conde will host a post-game analysis of the Higgs announcement as was done last December (See http://bit.ly/MFFD42). The url for July 4’s post-game analysis will be available at www.smuresearch.com by mid-day July 4.

SMU’s researchers at CERN carry out varied research. For example, the critical data the world’s physicists are analyzing to find the Higgs is transmitted in part from the Large Hadron Collider’s huge ATLAS experiment through a tiny fiber-optic data link that SMU helped design. Annie Xiang, SMU research professor, is available for interviews about this device, which must stand up to the harsh conditions of the experiment — high radiation and extreme cold.