Scientists says analysis of a particle found in the Large Hadron Collider last year strongly indicates it is the long-sought Higgs boson.
But a statement on the latest findings from huge volumes of data stops short of claiming the boson has been discovered for sure.
Physicists announced the discovery of the new elementary particle last year and have been measuring is behaviour and interaction with other particles.
Scientists believe the boson and its linked energy field were vital in the formation of the universe after the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago by bringing flying particles together to make stars, planets and eventually humans.
The statement from the CERN research centre in Geneva says it still has to be established whether the boson is a simple Higgs or something more exotic.