Understanding the Higgs Particle

In summary: The book was published in 2012.In summary, the book explains the Standard Model in a very brief way. The Higgs particle is invoked to give every other particle mass and it is explained poorly. The book tries to explain it with intuition, but it is misleading. The book prefers to see it mathematically.
  • #1
michael879
698
7
I just read this book on the Standard Model. It goes over most things very briefly and one thing it explained badly was the higgs particle. Why exactly does it give every other massive particle mass? The Higgs field from a single particle would be negligible from far away right? If we managed to create a Higgs particle would all the particles around it become more massive? Or are their virtual higgs particles everywhere?
 
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  • #2
badly explained? mm... what level is this? you sure need some advanced physics to understand it.
 
  • #3
Try wikipedia. Very roughly (and sloppily) the gist is that most particles should theoretically be massless. To escape this disaster, and to make progress on the electroweak side of things (which at the time there was growing evidence for), several people invoked and utilized the Higgs mechanism. Whereby several terms in the lagrangian (one from symmetry breaking, the other a pure massless gauge term) conspire to add up and unite in such a way that a single new mass term appears. Happily, people then identify these new mass terms with all the known particles and the standard model was born.

Of course this neccessarily requires that symmetry breaking term to be present (also called a Goldstone boson), and this was called the Higgs particle.
 
  • #4
yea that's the part I understand. I understand the basic concept. What I don't really get is the mechanism by which the higgs particle gives the other particles mass. The way it was explained in the book is that because the field of the particle is everywhere in space (by quantum field theory), when it breaks symmetry it "drags" the particles it interacts with it and makes their fields oscillate, giving them mass. However particle fields arent uniform throughout space. Because of this my first reaction was that particles closer to a higgs particle would be more massive than ones farther away. Obviously this isn't true so I am curious what I did wrong.
 
  • #5
Yea, its a little bit off to think too seriously about the 'dragging particles through space, causing friction --> causing mass'. Its right in a sense, but can lead to misleading intuition.

I prefer to see it mathematically. After you have exploited local gauge invariance, and spontaneously broken the symmetry, and with a convenient choice of gauge. You are simply left with a massive scalar (the higgs) and a massive gauge field (what we wanted to give mass too).

These are no different than any other particle, they just are what they are.

The intuition is in a sense just a mirage, as we are simply free to transform it away into something more familiar and banal. Essentially the degree of freedom of the Goldstone boson is transformed into extra polarization degrees of freedom for the now massive gauge field. This happens everywhere (as it must, by local gauge invariance)

Thats about as much as I can explain with words I think
 
  • #6
the particles react with the higgs field in a way that gives them mass
 
  • #7
This one is only four years old.
 

1. What is the Higgs particle?

The Higgs particle, also known as 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 thought to give other particles their mass through an interaction with the Higgs field.

2. How was the Higgs particle discovered?

The Higgs particle was discovered in 2012 at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland. Scientists at the LHC used high-energy collisions between protons to produce the Higgs particle, which was then detected by its decay products. This discovery was a major breakthrough in particle physics and confirmed the existence of the Higgs particle.

3. Why is the Higgs particle important?

The Higgs particle is important because it helps us understand the origin of mass in the universe. Without the Higgs mechanism, particles would not have mass and the universe would look very different. The discovery of the Higgs particle also confirms the validity of the Standard Model of particle physics, which is our current understanding of the fundamental particles and their interactions.

4. What are the potential implications of the Higgs particle?

One potential implication of the Higgs particle is the possibility of new physics beyond the Standard Model. The Higgs mechanism is still not fully understood, and further study of the Higgs particle may lead to new discoveries and a deeper understanding of the fundamental forces in the universe. The Higgs particle may also have practical applications, such as in the development of new technologies.

5. How does the Higgs particle interact with other particles?

The Higgs particle interacts with other particles through the Higgs field, which permeates the entire universe. The strength of this interaction determines the mass of the particles. For example, particles that interact more strongly with the Higgs field, such as the top quark, have a larger mass than particles that interact less, such as the electron. The Higgs particle also interacts with itself, which is important for understanding its properties and behavior.

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