I am certain that by now the general public is tiring of physicists and science nerds rambling on about the amazing discovery last summer of the Higgs boson, but that will never stop us! This week there have been more news stories about this particle (which serious scientists will never, ever refer to as the 'God Particle'), and I have had a few inquiries as to why it is in the media yet again. 

The reason that it is in the news again is that earlier this week, the LHC teams studying the Higgs have announced some new data. Since the discovery was announced in July 2012, they have collected over three times the amount of data, meaning they have produced over three times as many man-made Higgs bosons.

So why is it necessary to keep producing something that is already known to exist? The reason is that over the forty years between predicting the Higgs and discovering it, there have been hundreds if not thousands of variations proposed. The minimal Higgs interacts with all massive particles (and in fact gives them their mass). One particle fits all.

But there are other options. Supersymmetry models (which are far from proven to exist) require at least two Higgs bosons which each interact with different families of particles. Some models of higher dimensional spacetimes can have an infinite number of Higgs bosons! Some models require a Higgs which spins, some don't. Some models require a Higgs to be composed of smaller particles, some don't. Even worse, there are several theoretical particles which behave like a Higgs but are not Higgs bosons!

So which Higgs model is the real one?

That is why continued experimentation and study is required. We need to know. So far the data is still supporting a minimal, spinless, single Higgs boson. However since only one in a trillion particle collisions at the LHC produces a Higgs, a lot more data is required.