At the point you made the comment, the full number has not yet been shown. That's only the combined number for Higgs to gamma-gamma for 2011 and 2012 (so far).
Can someone please explain what 5 sigma signifies?
Edit: “Evidence” usually means a 3-sigma signal, which existed last December, “Proof” would be a better way to describe a 5+ sigma signal, if that’s what the combined CMS/ATLAS data shows - http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=4809
5 sigma is the traditional limit of significance for new discoveries in particle physics. If you have data showing the existence of a new particle or phenomenon at 5 sigma you publish and you announce and you start saying "this thing exists" instead of "this thing may exist".
They just announced 5.1 sigma, and on a normal distribution that would mean that it is 99.999966% certain, so that there is about a one-in-three-million chance that this is due to random chance, otherwise there is some sort of excess here due to a new particle.
Yeah. The gamma-gamma and Z-Z together have been combined into a signal of 5 standard deviations from the no-Higgs Standard Model. Which is the common threshold for a discovery.
