James Wells, Professor in Physics at University of Michigan
Abstract: Only a few years ago the Higgs boson was a speculative
particle with an uncertain future. Its recent discovery heralds a new
era in particle physics. We now must take seriously the existence of
potentially fundamental scalar bosons in nature and address the many
issues that surround it. Is such a boson "natural"? Are there
additional dynamics that can render it "natural" and not destabilize
the rest of the theory? Is it truly a fundamental scalar? How can we
tell if it is not, and what must we do to find out? Related to the
discussion of these questions, the discovery also lends renewed
support to recently identified varieties of supersymmetric theories
with very specific and testable characteristics.