In “Theorists feast on Higgs data” (Nature, 18 July 2012) Geoff Brumfiel cautions, “But usurpers of ‘standard model’ have little to chew on”:
However, for those who have spent their careers pursuing a more powerful extension of the standard model called supersymmetry (SUSY), the data offer scant succour. The theory predicts a suite of particles that are ‘super-partners’ to all the known particles, along with several types of Higgs boson. Many theorists regard SUSY as the most promising route to a broader theory of particles and forces, and a possible solution to puzzles such as the nature of cosmic dark matter.
But the LHC has yielded few signs of SUSY. Aside from a handful of tantalizing observations, the Higgs boson seems to match the standard model’s predictions perfectly. Under the weight of the LHC’s hard evidence, SUSY and other beloved theories are feeling the strain. “There’s going to be a huge massacre of theoretical ideas in the next couple of years,” predicts Joe Lykken, a theoretical physicist at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois.
Whoo hoo. Sell those pork bellies before word gets out.
See also: God particle consistent with standard model of physics after all?