ATLAS experiment searches for ‘charming’ decay of the Higgs boson

Key to understanding the Higgs boson and its role in the Standard Model is understanding how it interacts with matter particles, i.e. quarks and leptons. There are three generations of matter particles, varying in mass from the lightest (first generation) to the heaviest (third generation). Although hints of second-generation lepton interactions have started to appear, physicists have only experimentally confirmed that the masses of the heaviest quarks originate from their interactions with the Higgs field. So far, lighter quarks have not yet been observed interacting with the Higgs boson.