# Standard model Definition and 49 Discussions

The Standard Model of particle physics is the theory describing three of the four known fundamental forces (the electromagnetic, weak, and strong interactions, and not including gravity) in the universe, as well as classifying all known elementary particles. It was developed in stages throughout the latter half of the 20th century, through the work of many scientists around the world, with the current formulation being finalized in the mid-1970s upon experimental confirmation of the existence of quarks. Since then, confirmation of the top quark (1995), the tau neutrino (2000), and the Higgs boson (2012) have added further credence to the Standard Model. In addition, the Standard Model has predicted various properties of weak neutral currents and the W and Z bosons with great accuracy.
Although the Standard Model is believed to be theoretically self-consistent and has demonstrated huge successes in providing experimental predictions, it leaves some phenomena unexplained and falls short of being a complete theory of fundamental interactions. It does not fully explain baryon asymmetry, incorporate the full theory of gravitation as described by general relativity, or account for the accelerating expansion of the Universe as possibly described by dark energy. The model does not contain any viable dark matter particle that possesses all of the required properties deduced from observational cosmology. It also does not incorporate neutrino oscillations and their non-zero masses.
The development of the Standard Model was driven by theoretical and experimental particle physicists alike. For theorists, the Standard Model is a paradigm of a quantum field theory, which exhibits a wide range of phenomena including spontaneous symmetry breaking, anomalies and non-perturbative behavior. It is used as a basis for building more exotic models that incorporate hypothetical particles, extra dimensions, and elaborate symmetries (such as supersymmetry) in an attempt to explain experimental results at variance with the Standard Model, such as the existence of dark matter and neutrino oscillations.

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1. ### I Why does the QFT Lagrangian not already use operators?

I've learned that in canonical quantization you take a Lagrangian, transform to a Hamiltonian and then "put the hat on" the fields (make them an operator). Then you can derive the equations of motion of the Hamiltonian. What is the reason that you cannot already put hats in the QFT Lagrangian...
2. ### A No CP-Violation for coinciding Quark-Masses

Hello everyone, I know that if two of the quarks (e.g. strange & bottom) had coinciding masses, there would be no CP-violation in the standard model. Apparently the reason lies in the parameters of the CKM-matrix, but I don't understand how to show that. Can someone explain?
3. ### I From a false vacuum to a true vacuum?

In theory (please correct me if I am wrong in any point), if our vacuum were metastable (i.e. in a "false vacuum" state), it could go through a phase transition into a stable state (a "true vacuum" state). Depending on the properties of the new vacuum, fundamental forces and particles could...
4. ### I Why are free parameters bad for a theory?

It is often said that one of the drawbacks of the standard model is that it has many free parameters. My question is two-fold: What exactly is a free parameter? My understanding is that the free parameters of a model/theory are the ones that cannot be predicted by the theory and need to be...
5. ### A How to find the value of the baryon asymmetry in this paper

I'm trying to understand from this paper https://pdg.lbl.gov/2020/reviews/rpp2020-rev-bbang-nucleosynthesis.pdf What is the value of the baryon to photon ratio ##\eta=n_b/n_\gamma## as named in figure 24.1, but I can't get from the figure or the paper how ##\eta## is of order ##10^{-10}## Any...
6. ### A How Randall-Sundrum model has solved the hierarchy problem?

I'm trying to understand how the RS model solved the hierarchy problem from this mass relation $$M^2_p = \frac{M^3}{k} \Large[1- e^{-2k\pi r} \Large],$$ Equ. 16 in their paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/9905221 With k as large as the Planck scale, the exponential will be so small and...
7. ### A Griffith's Elementary Particles Section 9.7 Electroweak Unification

1. On pg. 343 Griffith's expresses the weak current in terms of left-handed doublets. jμ± = ##\bar χ_L##γμτ±##χ_L## ##χ_L## = ##\begin{pmatrix} ν_e \\ e \end{pmatrix}_L## ##\tau^+## = ##\begin{pmatrix} 0 & 1 \\ 0 & 0 \end{pmatrix}## , ## \tau^- ## = ##\begin{pmatrix} 0 & 0 \\ 1 & 0...
8. ### A Derivation of the Yang-Mills 3 gauge boson vertex

Hello everyone, I am stuck in the derivation of the three gauge-boson-vertex in Yang-Mills theories. The relevant interaction term in the Lagrangian is $$\mathcal{L}_{YM} \supset g \,f^{ijk}A_{\mu}{}^{(j)} A_{\nu}{}^{(k)} \partial^{\mu} A^{\nu}{}^{(i)}$$ I have rewritten this term...
9. ### I Why does a Lagrangian matter for the standard model?

Hi, I don't know much about the standard model but I'm asking out of interest. Why do we actually need a Lagrangian for the standard model? Surely when you apply the relevant Euler-Lagrange equations, you end up with a variety of equations like the Maxwell equations or Dirac equations. Why...
10. ### A Renormalization (Electron self energy)

Hello everybody! I have a big question about the renormalization: I do not understand why the "renormalization condition" is to impose the tree level result. Now I will explain it better. Let's take, for example, the electron self energy. The tree-level contribution is the simple fermionic...

30. ### Particle The Standard Model in a Nutshell - Goldberg

Just found this new book on amazon. Looks interesting. I purchased. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0691167591/?tag=pfamazon01-20 The TOC, Preface, and intro could be found here http://press.princeton.edu/titles/11050.html I wish they included a sample chapter as well (the book in not cheap), but I...
31. ### Other Graduate Research topic involving QFT and General Relativity

Last year I finished the undergraduate course in Mathematical Physics. This year, more precisely in March, I'm going to start the graduate course to acquire a master's degree in Physics. Now, for this course I must choose a research topic and find an advisor. This is being a little bit...
32. ### Unruh Effect for Standard Model Fields

I have seen the derivation for Unruh radiation for a massless, non-interacting scalar field (Carroll). Are there interesting differences that arise for more realistic standard model cases. For example, what does QCD look like for an accelerating observer? Any papers that detail this would be...
33. ### I Local Gauge invariance

Hello! Can someone explain to me what exactly a local gauge invariance is? I am reading my first particle physics book and it seems that putting this local gauge invariance to different lagrangians you obtain most of the standard model. The math makes sense to me, I just don't see what is the...
34. ### Insights Struggles with the Continuum - Conclusion - Comments

john baez submitted a new PF Insights post Struggles with the Continuum - Conclusion Continue reading the Original PF Insights Post.
35. ### Insights Struggles with the Continuum - Part 7 - Comments

john baez submitted a new PF Insights post Struggles with the Continuum - Part 7 Continue reading the Original PF Insights Post.
36. ### I Is the SM of particles physics and Cosmology SM

I'm in a deep discussion with a friend. He says that the Standard Model of particle physics is actually known by Standard Model of cosmology and that both are the same and that the SM of particle physics is in the Minkousky geometry.... I disagree about this, I do think that the SM of particle...
37. ### Insights LHC Part 4: Searching for New Particles and Decays - Comments

mfb submitted a new PF Insights post LHC Part 4: Searching for New Particles and Decays Continue reading the Original PF Insights Post.
38. ### I How can you visualize the Higgs field, or can you?

Just when I thought I had finally wrapped my brain around relativity, Quantum theory took off. Then the Higgs Boson was discovered. How does the Higgs field under-pin relativity, namely space-time? How is the Higgs field distributed? Does it have curvature like space time, or is omnipresent...
39. ### Pierre Ramond-Journeys Beyond the Standard Model

Homework Statement I want to diagonalize the quadratic form $$m_0((m_u+m_d)\pi^3\pi^3+\frac{2}{\sqrt{3}}(m_u-m_d)\pi^3\pi^8+\frac{1}{3}(m_u+m_d+4m_s)\pi^8\pi^8)$$ which can be found under equation 5.47, in order to get the mass of the η and ##\pi^0## pions. This quadratic form is produced by...
40. ### Gravity and massless particles

Just finished reading Sean Carroll's "The Higgs Boson and Beyond". I would be grateful if someone could explain how gravity, which I understand to be a function of mass, can interact with massless particles as evidenced by the phenomenon of gravitational lensing. I understand that gravity is a...
41. ### I Ratio of abundance of sub-atomic particles in the universe?

I was wondering if there is a current hypothesis about the quantities of which matter particles were created? I'm not completely au fait with the standard model, but I've seen the picture...
42. ### Particle Books about the Standard Model (with math)

I've been trying to learn more about the standard model. Leonard Susskind's lectures have been very helpful for SR, GR and QM. His lectures about the standard model are interesting, I learned a lot, no question. But he doesn't really cover in any depth the mathematical side of it. He mentions...
43. ### A Computing the pole mass from a given MS mass?

Given a Yukawa coupling as a function of scale and a vev, how can I compute the corresponding pole mas? Understandably most paper explain how from a measured pole mass one can compute the running mass, for example, Eq. 19 here. However I want to compute the pole mass from the running mass. In...
44. ### Top quark mass mt at energy scales μ<mt?

Does it make sense to talk about the top mass at energies below mt, although in all processes the corresponding energy scale is above mt because of the rest mass energy of the top quark? Using an effective field theory approach, the top quark decouples at energies below the top quark mass and...
45. ### Basic interactions in the Standard Model

Hi, Is there a list of basic interactions in the standard model? Does anyone know where I can find this list of basic interactions in the standard model?
46. ### Total mass-energy v nature of forces, particles

What does the standard model have to say about the relationship between the total mass-energy of the universe and the characteristics of forces and force-carrier particles? That is, if the total mass-energy were different, would the nature, strength, … of the forces and force-carrier particles...
47. ### 13 TeV Collisions at the LHC!

Today is an exciting day, for today will see a new record for the highest energy collisions at the LHC - stable 13 TeV collisions for new physics, signalling the start of the new physics program at the LHC! There are a few ways you can keep track of progress throughout the day. The LHC status...
48. ### Why don't a charm-anticharm meson decay to pair of leptons?

If you consider the ##\chi_0 ## with a mass of ## 3.4 GeV/c^2## meson, why doesn't it decay to a pair of charged leptons? Technically it is possible though the weak interaction (Z boson) or EM interaction, right? Is it because it is so heavily suppressed because the strong interactions are...
49. ### Question on the Standard Model

I read in a magazine (namely Scientific American) that the Standard Model successfully combines Quantum Mechanics with General Relativity, but I also remember reading in The Elegant Universe that the Standard Model fails to do so. What's true and what's not?