New data suggest a lighter Higgs

The God particle has fewer places to hide.

New data offer evidence that the heft of the Higgs particle lies somewhere in the low end of the range being probed by particle colliders on two continents. The results also hint that the particle’s mass may be consistent with supersymmetry, a theory that gives every particle in the standard model of physics a much heavier partner.

The latest results come from two ongoing experiments at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory's Tevatron particle accelerator in Batavia, Ill., that suggest the elusive Higgs cannot have a mass between 158 billion and 175 billion electron volts. (1 billion electron volts, or 1