Eur. Phys. J. H 36, 579–600 (2011)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjh/e2012-20069-1

Searching for Higgs : from LEP towards LHC

¹ Physics Department, CERN, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland
² Theory Group, DESY, 22603 Hamburg, Germany

^a e-mail: zerwas@mail.desy.de

Received: 21 December 2011
Received in final form: 9 January 2012
Published online: 17 February 2012

Abstract

After a brief introduction to the theoretical basis of the Higgs mechanism for generating the masses of elementary particles, the experimental searches for Higgs particles will be summarized, from bounds at LEP to inferences for LHC. The report will focus on the Standard Model, though some central results on extended Higgs systems, as conjectured for example in supersymmetric theories, will also be recapitulated. Alternative scenarios based on spontaneous symmetry breaking by novel strong interactions are adumbrated at the theoretical level.