Particle physics after the Higgs discovery: philosophical perspectives

The recent discovery at the LHC of a particle with properties matching those expected of the Higgs boson is a decisive event in the history of particle physics. The present special section combines three contributions that approach conceptual and methodological challenges related to this event and the current situation in particle physics from different angles. One contribution studies the experimental practices of contemporary particle physics by investigating the role of computer simulations in these practices; in particular, it focuses on the status of simulations as compared to experiments that in some circumstances have analogous functions. One contribution investigates the status of the controversial naturalness problem that many physicists see as the most severe shortcoming of the Standard Model of elementary particle physics. Finally, a third contribution critically assesses the impact of suggested no-go theorems concerning the interpretability of rigorous algebraic quantum field theory in terms of particles at the phenomenological level. In what follows we present a short overview of these contributions, highlighting some of their central ideas and arguments and putting them into context.