Higgs Definition and 674 Threads

I'm having hard time getting my head around this. If E=mc2, then why do we need a Higgs Boson? Can't all matter simply be pockets of greater or lesser intensity (i.e. energy with highly stable angular momentum carrying mass, less stable angular momentum as short-lived particles, and energy as...

Just a random question I thought of while daydreaming. Is it possible for a virtual particle that is not a W Boson, but is very like one (same mass, spin, etc.) to be produced from a Higgs decaying into two photons? Higgs→λλ+disturbance in W field.

Recently, in the Scientific American blog http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/11/29/person-of-the-year-nomination-for-higgs-boson-riddled-with-errors/?WT_mc_id=SA_CAT_physics_20121130 the author criticizes Time Magazine for its science reporting, which of course is nothing...

Hi guys, I've read up things on the Higgs field and boson, including the analogy provided by the CERN website. However, what I don't understand is what exactly happens as the Higgs field interact with particles. And for particles, do they mean elementary ones like quarks? Or do they mean more...

Like the question says: if a particle is perfectly static with respect to the Higgs field, can we still define mass or is mass then irrelevant? On another note, (and if I am not mistaken) why does mass not vary with a particle's speed with respect to the Higgs field? IH

The title says it all. The top is heavier than the Higgs boson. In that case, why was the LHC needed to find the Higgs conclusively? (a related question is: how strong was the evidence for the Higgs from the Tevatron?) Is the answer simply a question of higher luminosity at the LHC?? Or is the...

Im quite confused with the Parity idea. I never payed much attention to it. My thought always was that Parity is related to a discrete symetry of space and it is something that can be measured and can give 1 or -1 (like the x-momentum of a particle that can give "2" "1,9" "1,8" and so on)...

I ran into the following article by Varma, Higgs Boson in Superconductors http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0109409 Varma compares the Gross-Pitaevskii equation with the Higgs Lagrangian and calculates the elementary excitations. He shows that although symmetry is broken in both cases, Higgs...

Kane, Lu and Zheng have a paper today summarizing how they obtain a Higgs of about 125 GeV within the G2-MSSM (M-theory compactified on a "G2 manifold" so as to give the supersymmetric standard model). I'm not a big fan of this prediction, the machinery behind it is very complicated and I would...

1.) If the particle they believe to be the Higgs particle has a mass of 125 GeV, then how is it that the Higgs field itself does not have mass or react with gravity? If it is in fact the field creating the mechanism that gives everything its mass, and its particle form also has mass, why is it...

I’m struggling to put the Higgs mechanism into the context of established physics. It seems to me that the concept of ‘mass’ is far from immutable. Physicists often qualify mass as ‘effective’. An example is electron mass in a semiconductor, where effective mass may be positive, zero or...

I wonder...

Hi; Forgive me if this topic has been covered elsewhere; I'm new here and didn't find an answer to my question by searching the Higgs. With the potential discovery of the Higgs as announced this past July by CMS and ATLAS the one thing that I'm not understanding is why isn't the Higgs...

Hi. Mass of some particle is explained by Higgs mechanism. Is inertia also explained by Higgs mechanism? Inertia increases when a particle is in motion by relativity. Is this increase of energy is explained by Higgs mechanism? More tight binding with Higgs particle when a paricle is...

Assuming the higgs field expands at the speed of light, the radius of the higgs field (all of spacetime actually) should be the age of the universe multiplied by the speed of light. 14.6 billion (4.6*10^17 seconds) * 299,792,458 m/s = 1.38 * 10^26 meters. The spherical volume of spacetime is...

The top quark has mass around 173GeV. The Higgs boson (probably) has only 125GeV. Why the top quark has been discovered earlier despite it has larger mass? Why did we need more powerful accelerator to detect a lighter particle? Is it possible that there are some other light particles within our...

Why in the standard model doesn't charge need a boson like mass needs the Higgs boson?

Higgs vacuum expectation value for the Standard Model: (ref. 1 pg. 14) v_h = \sqrt{\frac{(\hbar c)^3}{\sqrt{2} G_F}} Higgs mass equation for the Standard Model: (ref. 1 pg. 14) m_H = \sqrt{2 \lambda_h} v_h \lambda_h - Higgs self-coupling parameter. Integration via substitution: m_H =...

I'm just throwing out an idea, which is probably wrong since I don't have a physics degree, but I'm curious anyways. I'd appreciate anyone giving feedback. For starters, I've read that the higgs mechanism, which gives all particles mass, is a paradigm of the meissner effect for superconductors...

Can anybody throw light on the following doubts? 1.what is the implication of the recent discovery of the higgs boson in the quantum physics? Does it support the quantum nature of matter and wave and the uncertainty principle? 2. It is said that Einstein did not accept the quantum theory...

(Note to the mods: This post is a link to an art piece concerning the Higgs boson, and not an actual question. I looked though the boards, trying to figure out the appropriate place to post it, and this board seemed most likely. If it doesn't belong on this board, please forgive me and move it...

Why does the standard model have a higgs boson quadratic and a cuartic term but it does not have a cubic term? is there any problem if it happens to have a cubic term? Thanks!

Hi all. I have recently read an article that summarizes our knowledge about Higgs boson and the consequences of its existence and of the value of its mass. The author says that our universe could be stable, unstable or metastable and that the discrimination between this three options is give by...

I was thinking, because of the relationship between energy and mass and the mathematics, would it (theoretically speaking, of course) be possible to accelerate the Higgs Boson to the speed of light, reducing its mass value to 0 and converting that mass into energy? I was also wondering if this...

Hi all I was looking at ways to teach about the Higgs and came across the old 'well-known scientist walks across a conference hall' analogy (see link below) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18707698 My interpretation of this goes as follows: 1. massive particles...

I know that the Higgs boson gives particles their mass. I know that there are two kinds of mass: inertial mass and gravitational mass. I know that the Higgs boson gives the inertial mass, but is there a relationship between it and gravity? If so, what is that relationship? As far as I know...

Hi If the Higgs field is present everywhere then so should be the Higgs Boson right? Then why is a particle accelerator required. Cant it be just detected from around us? Salil

I suppose the title says it all. I'm not a physicist, obviously, and all I know on the subject I know from pop science. I tried Googling this but got pretty much nothing. Here's what I want to know--is there a difference between the Higgs field and the phenomenon we know as space, or are they...

Is the Higgs boson only a particle of pure mass? It has no charge, no spin, no color, no flavor, etc. Does it have any other non-zero characteristic besides just mass?

1. Does the range where the Higgs has (possibly) been detected differ from what was expected? If so, what is the significance of this? 2. What is the name of the corresponding fermion to the higgs boson? 3. Do we already understand the Higgs mechanism "completely" or will its discovery...

Since Particles react with the Higgs Field to gain mass, can't the antiparticles react with it too to gain mass. Thanks Salil

Real or fake? Since we still know so little about particle physics and related applications the question remains out there. I am curious to know what others think?

13D "S-Theory" M4 x S9 has as isometry group SO(10) for the internal S9 space. 12D "F-Theory" M4 x S5 x S3 has SO(6)xSO(4), locally SU(4)xSU(2)xSU(2) 11D "M-Theory" M4 x ((S5xS3)/S1) has isometry group SU(3)xSU(2)xU(1) 10D is target space of SuperStrings, and perhaps also of Connes Chamseddine...

what is "q" (the charge) in higgs mechanism? hi, does anybody know what kind of charge the "q" stand for in the higgs mechanism? I mean the mechanism between the weak force mediators: W & Z, and the higgs boson, which leads to them acquiring mass. I've learned about it from the...

Theorem unifies superfluids and other weird materials http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2012/06/08/theorem-unifies-superfluids-and-other-weird-materials/ Nambu Goldstone bosons...of the Higgs Mechanism!..and phonons...from Cosmology to materials design. “Surprisingly, the implications of...

Hi, As I understand, please correct me if I'm wrong, when a subatomic particle interacts with the Higgs field it generates mass due to the higgs mechanism. Does this have anything to do with with e = mc2? (I'm not too privy to particle physics or relativity.) Suppose an electron and a...

what particles?

The Higgs mechanism is often explained (both here at PF and in many physics sites including wikipedia) as an example of spontaneous symmetry breaking, but the Nobel winner physicist 't Hooft says in his "for laymen" book about particle physics, "In search of the ultimate building blocks", that...

So the way I understand it is that certain particles move through the Higgs field and encounter no resistance, giving it no mass. The others that do encounter resistance are the ones that have mass. But if increasing resistance means increasing mass, why wouldn't things become infinitely...

I know they have been very close to it and seen something similar to the boson but did they actually find it? it's like the media has been blowing it up and saying they found it, but there was not official claim, it was just yeah we spend a garbageload of energy and time trying to find it, we...

As everyone knows, since the fourth of July, the family of elementary particles has been re-united with its long-lost son, the Higgs boson. Of course, as every discovery, so this one, too, serves to open up further questions. The first one that presents itself is certainly: So, is this the...

The Higgs mechanism and the Beginning of the Universe Now that the excitement about the discovery of the Higgs particle has made the Higgs mechanism justly famous, could someone please clarify for me the implications of incorporating this component of the Standard Model of Particle Physics...

The fermi four point interaction (consider its modern version, quark up to down plus electron plus antineutrino) is not renormalisable Then we introduce an intermediate boson W in the middle. Then we give mass to this W using the higgs mechanism. Then we produce the higgs via a fermion...

As I understand it in a normal superconductor electromagnetic fields are extinguished by opposing fields produced by induced superconducting currents. This causes photons to only penetrate a short distance into a superconductor. I understand that one can imagine the Higgs field as a kind of...

i know that they are trying to recreate the higgs boson at CERN LHC, but talking about when the big bang happened, how was the higgs field suppose to happen?

Hi All, I've been watching the Weinberg youtube video: and I have two questions. 1) He says at some point that although there is a symmetry which wants the standard model particles to be massless (and which is then spontaneously broken by the Higgs mechanism), this symmetry does not...

Seeing as it was so integral to the standard model and since the SM is so remarkably successful, aside from its inability to predict the correct amount of vacuum energy, and seeing as no experiment has proved it wrong, why did Hawking bet against it? It was only a 100 dollars so maybe he was...

Can someone please explain to me what a 125 GeV Higgs implies for the hierarchy problem (why the weak force is 10^{32} times stronger than gravity)?

Sorry for yet another one about the Higgs from a layman, and a perhaps tricky title. I was discussing with a friend and he came with this reasoning: Without the interaction with the Higgs field all the particles would be massless. Meaning that they would travel at the speed of light. Meaning...

If there is not a conservation of mass, then what happens to higgs-bosons? Are they destroyed, or decay into something else (if that is even possible...)?