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1mmorta1
Oct5-11, 07:13 PM
Do we already know enough about the Higgs to be certain that we cannot interact with it(i.e. exert any type of control over it, like we can with electrons) or is there room for discovery there?

I was just pondering some implications of such an ability, and realized that I don't know if the Boson is something that can have physical applications in engineering.

tom.stoer
Oct6-11, 01:13 AM
For the standard model Higgs the interaction is exactly known. The interaction with its vacuum expectation value creates mass for the gauge bosons (except for the photon) and the fermions (except for the neutrinos). The interaction terms contained in loops (no external Higgs but only internal lines i Feynman diagrams) can be calculated and result in quantum corrections to other scattering processes which restrict the experimentally allowed mass range for the Higgs.

Bill_K
Oct6-11, 02:37 PM
It's worth mentioning that the lifetime of the standard model Higgs boson is very short, 10-22 sec or less, depending on its mass. So it's not something you can easily "interact" with!

1mmorta1
Oct6-11, 03:13 PM
It's worth mentioning that the lifetime of the standard model Higgs boson is very short, 10-22 sec or less, depending on its mass. So it's not something you can easily "interact" with!

It sounds like I have a little more to learn about the higgs, I didn't realize it was so unstable.