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I don't think so. I'm an experimentalist, but its really about the exact Higgs mass, which should be a free parameter in the standard model, otherwise we could stop searching in a range, and it is used by about every theorist who wants to endorse Susy, so it should be a real effect.

Just as an update for you what are the actual issue, why else we believe standard model (SM) is incomplete.

Dark matter exists:

I've seen the picture already elsewhere, but it is from here. This are two galaxies flying through each other. The reddish part are Xrays caused by interaction of the galactic gas. The blue is, where the mass of the galaxies is, detected by gravitational lensing. So it is clear, that most mass in the galaxies is not interacting hadronically or electromagnetic.
In principle this matter has to interact only through gravitation and weak interaction is optional, but as weak interacting particles would have decoupled in the BigBang at pretty much the point that would explain todays dark matter, there is hope, that we can find it in colliders and that it is e.g. the lightest super symmetric particle, which is stable, when assuming supersymmetry to be conserved.

Another thing which the SM has problems to explain are neutrino masses, and why they are so small, though they have mass. (Cosmological structure formation indicates, that dark matter is non-relativistic, so much heavier than neutrinos, which don't contribute a lot). We think they have mass, because oscillation from one flavour into another is detected. Several experiments try to find out more about the mass and the (CKM-like) mixing matrix.

It is not clear by which mechanism the SM would create an excess of matter over antimatter in the Universe as it is seen. There are ideas for such processes and even in the SM one can explain some assymmetry, but only about 10^(-5) of the observed effect. More CP violating phases are needed. Colliders, maybe more the lower energy B fabrics (Japan plans a new one) may help to find it.

Fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) and mesurements of the speed of galxies very far away indicate that most of the mass in the universe is dark energy

Dark energy has a negative pressure (which I personally find mind-boggling) and increases the speed of expansion of the universe. It is not clear if this is just a cosmological constant as once introduced by Einstein to make his formulas consistent with a static universe, or if it is a dynamical thing. One hopes to find out more with better obersertion of the CMBR. It could be, that an extremely prices measurement could find a shifting coppling constant alpha, if it is a dynamical thing.

Der Amerikaner ist die Orchidee unter den Menschen
Volker Pispers

by Martin (weiser.mensch(at)googlemail.com) on Sat Feb 23rd, 2008 at 05:48:34 PM EST
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