The search for Higgs-like behavior in solid-state systems

Nature : In 1981 two theorists proposed that the superconductor niobium selenide could manifest behavior analogous to the Higgs mechanism that bestows mass on subatomic particles. Both the effect in NbSe ₂ and the Higgs mechanism arise from vibrations in fields that synchronize the oscillations of other particles. Now that, 31 years later, direct evidence has been found for the Higgs particle, solid-state physicists are hoping to better understand their own Higgs-like effect. They have already found that not all superconductors show the effect and that the behavior is also present in some antiferromagnets and some Bose–Einstein condensates . The use of solid-state experiments to study Higgs-like behaviors provides researchers significantly cheaper and smaller setups than large colliders. And it won’t be the first time that solid-state physics has influenced particle physics. In formulating his version of the theory of his namesake particle, Peter Higgs made use of a symmetry-breaking mechanism that Philip Anderson had identified previously in superconductors.