Exploring the Higgs Boson & Its Properties

In summary, the Higgs boson, also known as the "god particle," does not turn energy into matter but rather gives matter mass through the Higgs mechanism, which involves a non-zero scalar field. This solves the problem of having a renormalizable theory with gauge symmetry, and eliminates the presence of goldstone bosons. The Higgs boson is expected to be found soon at a high energy level of 1 TeV.
  • #1
JamesU
Gold Member
815
3
I'm wondering about the higgs boson, or "god particle". If it is said that it turned energy into matter, that has to be false, because it is matter itself. :cool:
 
Physics news on Phys.org
  • #2
\
\
\
/
/
/ Just keepin' it at the top...
 
  • #3
Don't do that.


It's mass is right at the maximum energy they could run the [LEP] at. But the indirect indications are that the Higgs boson should be close to that value.
-Brian Webber, professor of theoretical physics at Cambridge

I don't think it turns energy into matter, I think it gives matter mass.

The higgs boson is one of the particles on the line between matter and not. Like the photon. There's two kinds of mass, photons have one, Higgs bosons have only one, the same as the photon. The Higgs bson is the particle that ends up insuring that matter as we know it, have both types of mass.

We hope when the LHC gets running between 2006-2007, the Higgs will be found soon. At approximately 1 TeV, 1000 GeV It's almost 10 times more energetic than the LEP.

Table of basic particles:
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/39882000/gif/_39882466_standard_model2_416.gif
 
  • #4
yomamma said:
I'm wondering about the higgs boson, or "god particle". If it is said that it turned energy into matter, that has to be false, because it is matter itself. :cool:

The Higgs mechanism gives mass to elementary particles via symmetry breaking in the physical groundstate. This state does not have the same symmetry properties as the Lagrangian of the actual system, hence symmetry is broken.

If you want to give mass to elementary particles you cannot just write a m-term in the L because certain symmetries will automatically be broken. This is not good because these symmetries need to be respected in order for the Lagrangian to be a GOOD Lagrangian that describes the physical theory correctly.

The solution is this, don't write m but write down scalar field (of which the excitations are the Higgs-bosons, and being scalar also explains why there is no Higgs fermion), that was subject to a funny potential such that in the ground state (lowest energy) the field values would NOT be 0.

Indeed, the non-zero value of that field, coupled with an interaction term between that field and, say, the electron field, gave a term in the lagrangian which DID respect the symmetries required, but mimicked, at low energies, as a term that was essentially the same as a mass term.


It also solved another problem: there were 2 theorems in quantum field theory that made life hard. The first one was by 't Hooft, and said that if you want to have a renormalizable (calculable) theory, your interactions need to be described by fields such that the lagrangian obeys, what is called, a gauge symmetry. The problem with a gauge symmetry was that gauge particles have to be massless. People tried to find tricks around it, but Goldstone proved an annoying theorem (Goldstone's theorem), that said that you always have to have massless particles associated with the degrees of freedom of a gauge symmetry, the socalled "goldstone bosons". As these were not observed, that was annoying.
And then the Higgs mechanism was invented. It gave terms that mimicked mass to the gauge particles, it eliminated the goldstone bosons and gave, by its interactions, a mimicked mass term to the fermions.


regards
marlon
 

1. What is the Higgs Boson?

The Higgs Boson is a subatomic particle that was first theorized in the 1960s by physicist Peter Higgs. It is a fundamental particle that is responsible for giving other particles in the universe their mass.

2. Why is the Higgs Boson important?

The Higgs Boson is important because it helps us understand how particles acquire mass and how the universe works at a fundamental level. Its discovery in 2012 confirmed the validity of the Standard Model of particle physics and opened up new possibilities for further research and discoveries.

3. How was the Higgs Boson discovered?

The Higgs Boson was discovered in 2012 by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. Scientists used the LHC to accelerate protons to nearly the speed of light and then collide them. The resulting data showed the presence of a particle with properties consistent with the Higgs Boson.

4. What are the properties of the Higgs Boson?

The Higgs Boson has a mass of approximately 125 GeV and a spin of 0. It is also electrically neutral and has no color charge. These properties were predicted by the Standard Model and confirmed by experiments at the LHC.

5. How does the Higgs Boson give particles mass?

The Higgs Boson interacts with other particles through the Higgs field, which permeates the entire universe. When particles interact with this field, they gain mass. The more they interact with the Higgs field, the more massive they become. This is similar to how a ball rolling through molasses would experience resistance and become slower.

Similar threads

  • Atomic and Condensed Matter
Replies
3
Views
717
  • High Energy, Nuclear, Particle Physics
Replies
13
Views
2K
  • High Energy, Nuclear, Particle Physics
Replies
7
Views
1K
  • Advanced Physics Homework Help
Replies
2
Views
834
  • High Energy, Nuclear, Particle Physics
Replies
11
Views
1K
  • High Energy, Nuclear, Particle Physics
Replies
8
Views
1K
  • Beyond the Standard Models
Replies
0
Views
903
Replies
30
Views
2K
  • Atomic and Condensed Matter
Replies
3
Views
1K
  • High Energy, Nuclear, Particle Physics
Replies
3
Views
2K
Back
Top