A Fermion interacts with the Higgs field

[Spinnor]

In a blog post of Matt Strassler we are told about the top quark,

"when the Higgs field is not zero, its presence, and the fact that it has a direct interaction with the top-left and the top-right, forces the top-left to convert over to a top-right, and back again. How often does this happen? About a 100 trillion trillion (100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) times a second. "

From, https://profmattstrassler.com/artic...known-particles-if-the-higgs-field-were-zero/

Because an electron is roughly 300,000 lighter than the top quark will the electron convert from electron-right to electron-left roughly 300,000 times slower, only about 3E20 times a second?

Edit, should have read further, the answer to the above is yes, sorry.

If the fundamental fermions are massless and constantly scattering off the Higgs field is there a relationship between their average momentum and their rest mass?

A fermion scatters off the Higgs field into a new direction, are all directions equally likely?

Thanks!

 

[Drakkith]

If the fundamental fermions are massless and constantly scattering off the Higgs field is there a relationship between their average momentum and their rest mass?

Unless I misread the article, they aren't scattering off of the higgs field. They might scatter off of a higgs particle, but not the field itself. So the field has no effect on their momentum in the way that a collision might (though it might in other ways, such as by influencing their mass).

 

[mfb]

Don't take analogies too literally. And I think even the analogy is poor here.