Lifeboat Foundation

Aug. 28 (UPI) — Particle physicists have finally witnessed the decay of a Higgs boson particle into two bottom quarks.

Models predict Higgs boson particles decay into two bottom quarks 60 percent of the time. Bottom quarks, or b quarks, are the second heaviest of the six types of quarks.

Scientists have struggled to directly observe the predicted decay. Several types of proton-proton collisions can produce bottom quarks, making it difficult to link quarks produced by particle collisions with decaying Higgs boson particles.