Physicists working with large hadron collider believe that they may be close to finding the long sought Higgs Boson, the "God particle" by 2012 or disprove its existence entirely.

Rolf Heuer, director-general of the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) told the International Conference on High Energy Physics in Paris that by "the end of next year, you will have an answer".

The existence of the Higgs Boson, a particle believed to be crucial to forming the cosmos after the Big Bang has long plagued scientist. Now with the use of the large hadron collider, the so-called God Particle as well as the detection of dark matter could be in the reach of scientists.

"This is a dark universe and I hope the LHC ... will shed the first light into this dark universe," Heuer told the international conference. "This will take time."

The LHC, is a 27 km looped tunnel that smashes particles together to create mini- Big Bangs. Currently it is colliding particles at around half of its maximum energy levels- 7 million electron volts, or 7 TeV.

Researchers are planning to increase this energy input to 14 TeV which will be more in line to the conditions found during the Big Bang.

The discoveries physicists will make with the help of the LHC will herald an age of new physics, according to Heuer.

"Whether the LHC will have discoveries by 2012, I don't know. I hope it might happen, but if it doesn't happen then it might be three or four years later," Heuer said.

"From now on, we are in new territory," said Oliver Buchmueller, a senior CERN researcher. "What we are doing is effectively going back in time. The higher we raise the energy, the closer we come to what was happening at the Big Bang."