What is Higgs: Definition and 682 Discussions

In the Standard Model of particle physics, the Higgs mechanism is essential to explain the generation mechanism of the property "mass" for gauge bosons. Without the Higgs mechanism, all bosons (one of the two classes of particles, the other being fermions) would be considered massless, but measurements show that the W+, W−, and Z0 bosons actually have relatively large masses of around 80 GeV/c2. The Higgs field resolves this conundrum. The simplest description of the mechanism adds a quantum field (the Higgs field) that permeates all space to the Standard Model. Below some extremely high temperature, the field causes spontaneous symmetry breaking during interactions. The breaking of symmetry triggers the Higgs mechanism, causing the bosons it interacts with to have mass. In the Standard Model, the phrase "Higgs mechanism" refers specifically to the generation of masses for the W±, and Z weak gauge bosons through electroweak symmetry breaking. The Large Hadron Collider at CERN announced results consistent with the Higgs particle on 14 March 2013, making it extremely likely that the field, or one like it, exists, and explaining how the Higgs mechanism takes place in nature.
The mechanism was proposed in 1962 by Philip Warren Anderson, following work in the late 1950s on symmetry breaking in superconductivity and a 1960 paper by Yoichiro Nambu that discussed its application within particle physics.
A theory able to finally explain mass generation without "breaking" gauge theory was published almost simultaneously by three independent groups in 1964: by Robert Brout and François Englert; by Peter Higgs; and by Gerald Guralnik, C. R. Hagen, and Tom Kibble. The Higgs mechanism is therefore also called the Brout–Englert–Higgs mechanism, or Englert–Brout–Higgs–Guralnik–Hagen–Kibble mechanism, Anderson–Higgs mechanism, Anderson–Higgs–Kibble mechanism, Higgs–Kibble mechanism by Abdus Salam and ABEGHHK'tH mechanism (for Anderson, Brout, Englert, Guralnik, Hagen, Higgs, Kibble, and 't Hooft) by Peter Higgs. The Higgs mechanism in electrodynamics was also discovered independently by Eberly and Reiss in reverse
as the "gauge" Dirac field mass gain due to the artificially displaced electromagnetic field as a Higgs field.On 8 October 2013, following the discovery at CERN's Large Hadron Collider of a new particle that appeared to be the long-sought Higgs boson predicted by the theory, it was announced that Peter Higgs and François Englert had been awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics.

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  1. J

    Higgs Boson discovered Moment of victory Yay

    News just came out from a press conference, that the "god particle", a.k.a, the Higgs Boson has been affirmatively discovered. Analyzing the results of trillions of high energy collisions that took place in particle accelerators, physicists concluded that the higgs boson particle (or a particle...
  2. S

    How does Higgs couple to mass resulting from photons or kinetic E?

    The Higgs is supposed to couple to fermions but not photons. Nevertheless, photons add mass to systems in SR. Also kinetic energy (KE) of fermion motion adds inertia and mass to systems in SR theory. So, how does the Higgs field "tell" that this type of mass from photons and KE IS mass, and give...
  3. Jameson

    MHB Possible announcement of proof Higgs Boson exists

    http://www.wired.com/geekmom/2012/07/higgs-boson-anticipation/ For some reason the Higgs Boson has become famous well beyond those interested in physics. There is a schedule press conference at 9am Geneva at the site of the Large Hadron Collider and it seems that the only discovery warranting...
  4. M

    Has the Higgs Boson Particle Been Discovered at Cern?

    God particle is 'found': Scientists at Cern expected to announce on Wednesday Higgs boson particle has been discovered Scientists 'will say they are 99.99% certain' the particle has been found Leading physicists have been invited to event - sparking speculation that Higgs boson particle...
  5. E

    Explanation of Higgs mass exclusion graphs?

    This is a graph from an article from last November on the search for the Higgs with the Atlas detector. It shows the cross section for a Higgs process relative to the standard model prediction. And then the upper limit of this, at the 95% confidence level. And this for different Higgs...
  6. D

    The Higgs field and the aether

    I have just watched a video by Professor Brian Cox. In it he describes the proposed Higgs field. If it exists, it is thought that this field permeates all space among other attributes. When I heard this, it struck a familiar chord. It sounded almost identicle to the description of the aether...
  7. D

    Higgs field and General Relativity

    If the Higgs field is responsible for embuing particles with mass, and mass is responsible for gravity, is it possible that the Higgs field will provide the missing link between general relativity and quantum mechanics ie could the Higgs field be the basis of a quantum theory of gravity?
  8. R

    What is the role of the Higgs field in providing weak charge to the vacuum?

    This is from Lisa Randall's Knocking on Heaven's Door Is weak charge something related to the weak force? What exactly is it?
  9. R

    General Question about Higgs boson

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jun/29/higgs-boson-rumours-fly-cern-results?newsfeed=true just read this news article and sounds thoroughly exciting. I wanted to know in general exactly gave rise to the idea of the higgs boson imbuing elementary particles with mass. What were the...
  10. T

    Higgs particle, Electroweak force and Energy

    Hi there. I have a question. Different QFT books usually introduce de Simmetry Breaking mechanism something like this: 1) We have a local gauge theory. 2) The theory has a parameter which is usually positive but can be negative 3) If this parameter is, let's say, negative then the vacuum is...
  11. P

    Higgs particle question anticipating July 4 Cern announcement

    Soon, I believe on 4 July 2012, CERN is due to make an important announcement regarding the discovery (or not) of the Higgs particle at the LHC. This announcement is likely to be an important milestone in physics. It comes after a long drought of significant fundamental physics discoveries...
  12. e2m2a

    Can the Higgs Field Explain Relativistic Momentum and Energy?

    Can the theoretical Higgs Field be used as the “cause” of relativistic momentum or relativistic kinetic energy of a moving body?
  13. Mordred

    Latest Higgs Boson Rumors Spark Excitement in Scientific Community

    http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/06/latest-higgs-rumors/ been seeing several recent articles regarding this article this is one of the more recent ones thought you all would be intersted in it
  14. D

    Solving Higgs Decay Invariant Averaged Amplitude Problem

    Homework Statement I have decay of Higgs to fermion and antifermion and I need to find out the invariant, averaged amplitude. And I wrote down the Feynman diagram, and calculated everything and I came to this part: \langle|M|^2\rangle=\frac{g_w^2}{4}\frac{m_f^2}{m_w^2}(4p_1\cdot...
  15. D

    Why 1964 Higgs? Uncovering the Motivation Behind Its Postulation

    Layman, I have a problem to understand the Higgs' motivation back then at 1964. The Higgs as I understand was postulated to explain how spontaneous breaking of gauge symmetry takes place in nature, which in turn explains why other elementary particles have mass. This all make perfect sense...
  16. A

    Is Higgs boson surely a particle?

    I've been bugged by a question for some time.Everyone talks about the Higgs boson, although no one discovered it yet.My question is how do we know it's a particle?I mean, to me it'd make more sense if it were a wave created at the same time with the Big Bang that gave everything mass or if it...
  17. M

    Understanding Higgs Field Theory: Can Particle Mass Be Modified?

    Hello, This is my first post and I'm by no means a professional, but I am trying to sort out my understanding of the Higgs field theory. As I understand it, particles acquire mass through their interaction with the Higgs field, an electron being the "lightest" and a Top Quark being the...
  18. coktail

    Higgs Field, Big Bang, and Spacetime

    This is several questions crammed together because they overlap in my mind. Thanks! Is the Higgs Field something that occupies the complete void of space, or is it thought to be a property of space itself? Was the Higgs Field caught up in the mass of the pre-big bang singularity, or would...
  19. C

    So how will CERN's LHC detect a Higgs boson

    So how will CERN's LHC produce a Higgs boson I saw a video where a professor said "So you do it by ... using e=mc^{2} ... you collide some protons at huge energies, so that's giving you energy, and that energy gets converted into the mass of all possible new particles that there can be"...
  20. M

    The 130 GeV gamma-ray line and the 125 GeV Higgs

    In blog discussions of the possible gamma-ray signal at 130 GeV (which is being interpreted as resulting from annihilation of dark matter particles), it's often asked whether this could have anything to do with a 125 GeV Higgs. And now I'm wondering: is it possible that the mass-splitting...
  21. Darken-Sol

    Whats the deal with the higgs boson?

    from the little info i have found it i gather we are still looking. where can i find more info? google just brings up wiki and some crap from cnn. i don't know much about it, however i would like to. if it gives other particles mass how can we find it in a particle collider? wouldn't it already...
  22. N

    Does the Higgs field give mass to all particles or only to gauge bosons?

    The title says it all. I've seen an example worked out, and there mass was given to a gauge boson specifically. Also, I wouldn't know why the Higgs boson would want to give mass to the fermions, since they already have mass in the Yang-Mills theories; it's only the gauge bosons that initially...
  23. A

    Higgs boson and graviton relationship?

    F=GM1M2/r^2 The force of gravity without mass is 0. Wouldn't this imply that gravitons and higgs bosons come in pairs? Is there any evidence of gravitons and higgs bosons existing only in pairs?
  24. S

    Higgs Boson and confidence levels

    What is the current state of things? Are they fairly confident that the Higgs exist despite more data being needed for the 5-sigma confidence level? Could it still (realistically) turn out to not exist?
  25. I

    Plots for determining the range of higgs mas

    I am trying to do some plots for determining the range of higgs mass. Can somebody tell me how to plot higgs mass 'm_h' versus tan β ? or 'm_h' versus spectral index 'n_s' ?
  26. B

    What is the status of research on gravitons and Higgs bosons?

    What is the present state of research on gravitons and Higgs bosons? How much has the research advanced?
  27. D

    In what sense is the Higgs expected to be discovered

    In what sense is the higgs particle expected to be discovered at the LHC? I mean, the Higgs field has a non-vanishing vacuum expectation value, so it costs no energy to absorb or emit a higgs boson.Hence what is meant when saying that the expected mass is about 126 GeV? I suppose one is...
  28. N

    Does ''Higgs sector'' mean there are many Higgs particle types?

    Please teach me this: Does ''Higgs sector'' mean there are many Higgs particle types?Does custodial SU(2) symmetry using mean maybe there is a theory of electroweak interaction more complex than theory of single Higgs scalar? Thank you in advance.
  29. M

    How can the Higgs Boson induce mass?

    How can the Higgs boson induce mass? How can it interact with itself? Is it the only particle able to do so, if yes, why, and if no, what other particles can interact with themselves? As a side thought, is Young's Double Slit Experiment evidence of particles interacting with themselves (the...
  30. A

    A puzzle about the higgs mechanism

    I might misunderstand the higgs mechanism. And I have a puzzle. Consider an electron in an accelerater. It is massive at low energy and its speed is something lower than the speed of light. However when it is accelerated to the electroweak scale, su(2) becomes unbroken and the electron turns...
  31. R

    Is the Higgs boson already discovered?

    Alberto Palma's recent paper Arxiv:1202.0217 says in its conclusions part: "The ATLAS collaboration presents first results of the direct search for the SM Higgs boson decaying to b\bar b. No evidence of the Higgs boson was found in a pp collision data sample of \mathcal L=1.04\ \mathrm f\mathrm...
  32. marcus

    Cai Easson avoid eternal inflation , use Higgs to seed structure

    Cai Easson avoid "eternal inflation", use Higgs to seed structure Cai and Easson's paper takes off from the seminal paper of Shaposhnikov and Wetterich that is discussed here at BTSM https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=560031 Shapo-Wetter predicted 126 GeV Higgs in 2009 on the...
  33. J

    Higgs boson only interacts with accelerating particles?

    What is the fundamental rationale for why particles moving through the Higgs ocean would only interact if they are accelerating?
  34. M

    Higgs boson lifetime and decay length?

    I am trying to figure out how fast the Higgs decays and how far it travels in a detector at the LHC. Figure 2.5 in http://www.hep.lu.se/atlas/thesis/egede/thesis-node14.html gives decay widths of the Higgs as a function of its mass. For a Higgs of 125 GeV, it is 0.002 GeV. Using the...
  35. D

    Does Higgs Boson Discovery Support 4-D Spacetime Model?

    Would the Higgs boson discovery support a 4-D spacetime model?
  36. V

    Regarding Higgs boson and ether model

    Hi all, I have few questions regarding Higgs boson and ether model. I wanted to know :- 1.What if "ether" == Higgs Boson? 2.The experiment done earlier to detect ether around the Earth failed because we don't know how to detect that medium? 3. On the question of "Drag" , Please...
  37. M

    Energy release from Graviton / Higgs Boson

    With so much coverage in the press over the seemingly imminent discovery of the Higgs particle, there's one question that never seems to get raised - which more than likely means I've missed something fundamentally simple; so this may be a very short thread! Higgs Boson / Graviton - it may be...
  38. S

    What is the Higgs Boson and how does it give particles their mass?

    I've recently been told about the higgs boson or "god particle" I've heard it somehow endows particles with their mass, it interacts with the 'larger' (ones with more mass) more than the smaller particles and basically tells them how much mass to have, I am wondering how it does this and also I...
  39. J

    Higgs boson for the uninitiated

    I usually visit this forum as a guest. I am not a physicist but these visits always teach me something and keep me somewhat informed of what goes on in the world of physics. But now I have a question which will probably seem stupid to you all. It is apparent that the Higgs boson plays a most...
  40. J

    Dirac equation for electron in EM and Higgs fields?

    Is this the correct form for a Dirac electron in a Higgs field with scalar potential \phi and an electromagnetic field with vector potential A_\mu i \gamma^\mu \partial_\mu \psi = g \phi \psi + e \gamma_\mu A^\mu \psi where g is the coupling constant to the Higgs field and e is the...
  41. J

    How can Higgs field explain proton's inertial resistance to acceleration?

    If most of the mass/energy of a proton is due to the kinetic energy of its quarks and gluons, rather than interaction with the Higgs field, then how can we explain its inertial mass, i.e. its resistance to acceleration, as being due to a drag induced by the Higgs field? Alternatively imagine...
  42. H

    Relationship between higgs field and EM field

    So I'm trying to understand how the Higgs field and Higgs boson are different from the EM field and the photon. Firstly how I understand the photon is that It is the quanta of energy that an electromagnetic field oscillating at a certain frequency can give to some other system. The photon is the...
  43. N

    Mass of Higgs & Relativistic: Is it Comprised of Both?

    In another thread I asked the question if my mass is comprised of "Higgs Mass" and "Kinetic mass". Drakkith was nice enough to reply best he could, but wasn't certain. So yea, that's what I am wondering. Is my mass comprised of higgs and kinetic?
  44. C

    125 GeV Higgs and Vacuum Instability

    125 GeV Higgs and "Vacuum Instability" So the Higgs has been http://press.web.cern.ch/press/pressreleases/Releases2011/PR25.11E.html (maybe). Nothing "beyond the standard model" about that of course; the Higgs is standard model. Except-- in the leadup to the LHC announcement, I repeatedly saw...
  45. D

    Higgs free space travelling, close to lightspeed possible ?

    I was thinking if the Higgs part would be found next year, is it true if it could be removed from materials, that you could build spaceships from such materials, you could travel with speeds close to the lightspeed, so Star Track would be a real possibility in the future ? Or do I forget...
  46. P

    What does the Higgs Field have in common with Congress?

    "a sort of cosmic molasses pervading space is what gives particles their heft. Particles trying to wade through it gather mass the way a bill moving though Congress gains riders and amendments, becoming more and more ponderous." -- New York Times
  47. marcus

    Shaposhnikov Wetterich predicted 126 GeV Higgs in 2009

    Let's try to see the S&W prediction in connection with Derek Wise's beautiful paper on Cartan gravity and symmetry breaking. http://arxiv.org/abs/1112.2390 The geometric role of symmetry breaking in gravity Derek K. Wise (Submitted on 11 Dec 2011) In gravity, breaking symmetry from a group G to...
  48. epenguin

    Has anyone seen Higgs' Boson recently

    by any chance?
  49. J

    What is the relationship between the Higgs boson and gravity?

    okay, i am totally confused (again). i ihave a general understanding that the higgs mechanism is the effect which gives particles mass. the higgs mechanism is determined by the higgs field and mediated by the higgs boson. is that correct so far? now the HLC indicates that it has somehwat...
  50. B

    Why doesn't the Higgs produces a cosmological constant

    If the vacuum contains all these Higgs bosons, at expectation of <246> GeV in vacuum, why isn't there a cosmological constant, given the vacuum an energy density of 246 GeV^4 , instead we see dark energy at a few meV^4. Could just say that the graviton doesn't couple to the Higgs at all, but...
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