Unanswered Questions in the Electroweak Theory

Understand

This article is devoted to the status of the electroweak theory on the eve of experimentation at CERN's Large Hadron Collider.

• A compact summary of the logic and structure of the electroweak theory precedes an examination of what experimental tests have established so far.
• The outstanding unconfirmed prediction of the electroweak theory is the existence of the Higgs boson, a weakly interacting spin-zero particle that is the agent of electroweak symmetry breaking, the giver of mass to the weak gauge bosons, the quarks, and the leptons.
• General arguments imply that the Higgs boson or other new physics is required on the TeV energy scale.