- #1
jbar18
- 53
- 0
Hello,
I have read that above a certain temperature, the weak bosons become massless and become indistinguishable to the photon. Is the idea simply that at high enough energies, the Higgs field can sit on top of the peak in the mexican hat potential? I.e. at high enough energies, it's vacuum expectation value can be 0 (even if that were the case, surely it would still "prefer" to sit in the brim)? Would the leptons then also become massless?
That's my main confusion, but as a sub-question I was also wondering what exactly "electroweak" implies. Does it suggest that above certain energies the electromagnetic and weak interactions are literally the same? Does it just mean that photons can mediate radioactive decay (and indeed are indistinguishable from the weak bosons), or does the unified force behave differently to the sum of its parts?
Thanks
Edit: I am trying to think of how they would behave as a single force in a similar way to electromagnetism, but I am not really sure how exactly EM behaves either. Electricity and Magnetism are two aspects of this one force, but they affect charges completely differently and beyond getting the photon I am not sure what unifying them does for us. I have a reasonable physics background but nowhere near the amount of maths or physics to be able to rigorously understand the standard model.
I have read that above a certain temperature, the weak bosons become massless and become indistinguishable to the photon. Is the idea simply that at high enough energies, the Higgs field can sit on top of the peak in the mexican hat potential? I.e. at high enough energies, it's vacuum expectation value can be 0 (even if that were the case, surely it would still "prefer" to sit in the brim)? Would the leptons then also become massless?
That's my main confusion, but as a sub-question I was also wondering what exactly "electroweak" implies. Does it suggest that above certain energies the electromagnetic and weak interactions are literally the same? Does it just mean that photons can mediate radioactive decay (and indeed are indistinguishable from the weak bosons), or does the unified force behave differently to the sum of its parts?
Thanks
Edit: I am trying to think of how they would behave as a single force in a similar way to electromagnetism, but I am not really sure how exactly EM behaves either. Electricity and Magnetism are two aspects of this one force, but they affect charges completely differently and beyond getting the photon I am not sure what unifying them does for us. I have a reasonable physics background but nowhere near the amount of maths or physics to be able to rigorously understand the standard model.
Last edited: