- #1
jordankonisky
- 41
- 3
My question relates to the very origin of the elementary particles. I understand that the Higgs field breaks the mass symmetry of the elementary particles and that the Higgs field-based mass value for each particle is dependent upon the strength of interaction between each elementary particle and a Higgs field. This leads to the mass differences between elementary particles that we observe today. My question is what determines the difference in the strength of coupling to the Higgs field for different elementary particles? Does each kind of elementary particle differ in some way before each of them couple to a Higgs field? Or are they fully symmetrical in every way, i.e. of the same quantum state), and it is only later that they take on their distinct properties as elementary particles through after interaction with the Higgs field(s)? Does some fraction of these identical particles (or their fields) interact with a different Higgs field, each kind of Higgs field(s) interaction creating a different elementary particle? That is, is the set of elementary particles created at the instant of their creation or only after interacting with the appropriate Higgs field? To put is more succinctly, were there a set of distinguishable elementary particles before their future interaction with Higgs fields?