Higgs mass

Bowles

They say Higgs particles are so hard to detect because their mass is so big. But when their mass is so big, wouldn't that make them easier to detect?

pam

but harder to produce.

CraigD

High mass means they decay very fast as well, but pam is correct, that the energy level associated with that mass is very hard to come by.

Bowles

But why the need of producing them? Don't they give all particles mass, so shouldn't they be ubiqious?

malawi_glenn

But then they only exists as virtual particles.

And HOW would you detect a Higgs from the Higgs field?

Bowles

ahh, this virtual versus real particle business!

Keep forgetting and misunderstanding it.

So Higgs is sort of like the gluon field?

malawi_glenn

Higgs boson is the particle that gives other particle mass, by mediating between the Higgs field and the other fields. Rough speaking. There are also a varaity of models, with different Higgs bosons etc.

The basic thing one wants to detect is the decay of the (real) higgs boson. A Higgs boson are belived to be created in the proton + anti_proton annihilation at LHC.

kdv

In the sense that there is a quantum field associated to the Higgs like there is a quantum field associated to the gluon, to the electron, to each quark, etc.

So this Higgs quantum field permeates space and the other fields interact with it yielding a mass for all the particles (the massive ones).
However, this is only indirect evidence. To have a direct evidence of the Higgs field, we want to excite it and produce an observable excitation of the Higgs field which will appear as a Higgs particle. Until we produce and observe an excitation of the Higgs field we won't know it if really exists or if maybe the particle masses are produced by an entirely different process.

Norman

Spot on IMO.

Jim Kata

My question about the Higgs, is why haven't they found it. I mean its mass is < 225 GeV,

and a lot of the GUTS place it's value a lot smaller. I've seen it being possibly as light as

115 GeV. I mean with the Z boson particle weighing 91 GeV and the top quark 170 GeV

it seems like we're in the neighborhood of energies. If the LHC with its combined beam

energy of 14 TeV doesn't find it?

Bowles

I also like to add one question!

What particles are they smashing at another to get Higgs particle?

malawi_glenn

See post #7 in this thread.

Parlyne

Last I checked, the LHC is a proton/proton collider.

malawi_glenn

Yeah that can be true, I might mix it with the FAIR project ;)

ahrkron

LHC is proton-proton.
Fermilab's Tevatron is proton-antiproton.

Rade

fyi, the LHC will also investigate photon-photon interactions--see here:
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0702212

and photon-nucleus interactions--see here:
http://arxiv.org/abs/0706.3356

malawi_glenn

yes but the particles beeing accelerated towards each other are two protons.