Help in clearing up Higgs boson/field

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In summary, the Higgs field interacts with particles to give them mass, with the strength of interaction determined by the particle's mass. Before the Higgs field adopts a vacuum expectation value, all particles are massless and interact with the Higgs field like any other particle interaction. But once the Higgs field adopts a constant value, the same interaction term becomes the source of mass for the particles. This is a simplified explanation, as the concept is more complex and involves factors such as the coupling constant and the Higgs field's ground state.
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Kaldanis
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I've had people explain this to me and I've watched a few videos but I'm still confused.

Particles interacting with the 'Higgs field' gives them mass, but how much they interact with the field is determined by the mass of the particle in the first place. That doesn't seem to make sense so surely I'm mistaken :smile: can someone please explain it?
 
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Not sure what you mean here. The particles don't have mass 'in the first place', that's why they need to get some through interacting with the Higgs field. I guess pointing you to this wiki on yukawa interactions isn't going to help too much but here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukawa_interaction

The point is that there is a coupling constant which determines 'how much' the massless particles interact with the higgs field (the 'g' in the first equation on the wiki, these are the Standard Model Yukawa couplings), but when that higgs field adopts a vacuum expectation value (i.e. becomes a constant) the same interaction term suddenly looks the same as a term which determines mass. The mass of the particle is then determined by a combination of the original coupling strength and the higgs VEV.

It is a little bit more complicated than that actually but I think that is the basic gist of it.

edit: Perhaps I'll say just slightly more. Before the higgs field adopts a VEV* all particles have no mass**, so this interaction with the higgs field looks pretty much like any any other particle interaction, i.e. there are real higgs bosons flying around and the massless particles scatter off them with a strength governed by their yukawa coupling. This picture changes completely once the universe cools so much that there are no more 'real' higgs bosons flying around, and the higgs field just becomes this constant flat nothing field***.

*i.e. at high energies above the scale at which the electromagnetic and weak interactions unify.
**we are above the confinement scale here so there are no hadrons, the universe filled with a crazy quark-gluon plasma, and the quarks are massless.
***the higgs field is very strange in this way. All the other fields, if you just let them settle to their ground state (i.e. all the particles go away), leave you with basically nothing (except some quantum fluctuations). The higgs field has a ground state which is non-zero, and so still matters a lot, i.e. it is not really 'nothing'. It is really weird.
****Please correct anything stupid I may have said :).
 
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1. What is the Higgs boson/field?

The Higgs boson is a subatomic particle that is believed to give mass to all other particles in the universe. The Higgs field is an invisible energy field that fills all of space and interacts with particles, giving them mass.

2. How was the Higgs boson discovered?

The Higgs boson was discovered in 2012 at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) by a team of scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). They detected the particle by smashing protons together at high energies and analyzing the resulting data.

3. Why is the Higgs boson/field important?

The Higgs boson/field is important because it helps to explain one of the fundamental mysteries of the universe - why particles have mass. Its discovery also confirmed the validity of the Standard Model of particle physics, which is the most comprehensive theory we have to explain the behavior of particles.

4. How does the Higgs boson/field affect our daily lives?

While the discovery of the Higgs boson/field has not directly impacted our daily lives, the technology and advancements used in its discovery have led to many other breakthroughs in science and medicine. Additionally, a better understanding of the Higgs boson/field could potentially lead to new technologies in the future.

5. Are there any current research efforts related to the Higgs boson/field?

Yes, there are ongoing research efforts to further understand the properties and interactions of the Higgs boson/field. Scientists are also using data from the LHC to search for other particles and phenomena that could help us better understand the universe and its origins.

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