Clarification of Higgs field, Higgs boson and gravitons

In summary, the conversation discusses the relationship between gravitons and the Higgs field and how it affects the mass of particles. It is stated that the graviton must be massless in order for gravity to have an unlimited range, and if it were to couple to the Higgs field, it would contradict observation. The possibility of the Higgs boson mass being a result of coupling to gravitons is also brought up. However, it is mentioned that there are theories with massive gravitons and the point about a massless spin-2 particle being a graviton. The conversation also touches on string theory and how gravitons in this theory are massless and couple to all forms of energy, including the Higgs field.
  • #1
kodama
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since gravity under GR has unlimited range the graviton must be massless. since the graviton is massless, the higgs field does not couple to the graviton. If the higgs field did couple to gravitons, it would cause gravitons to have mass, contradicting observation.

but the higgs field carries energy, and gravitons must couple to the higgs field but remain massless.

the higgs boson then does not couple to gravitons. but since the higgs boson carries energy, then gravitons must couple to the higgs boson. is it possible the higgs boson mass of 126 gev is the result of higgs coupling to gravitons

is this correct? so if gravitons couple to both the higgs field and higgs boson based on energy, why doesn't the gravitons gain mass?
 
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  • #2
kodama said:
is this correct?

No,

Since this is an A-level thread, please write down a coupling between A and B that is not also a coupling from B to A.
 
  • #3
Hint: The source of the gravitational field in GR is not mass but energy, momentum, and stress (look up the Einstein equation).
 
  • #4
kodama said:
since gravity under GR has unlimited range the graviton must be massless. since the graviton is massless, the higgs field does not couple to the graviton. If the higgs field did couple to gravitons, it would cause gravitons to have mass, contradicting observation.
This is not a general rule, since it depends on how you build the interaction... for example the gluons are massless (to our knowledge) but the strong force does not have an infinite range... that is because QCD is built as such.
Gravitons are hypothetical particles and we don't have a theoretical framework (like we do for gravity through General Relativity) from which we can say things like "contradicting observation". In particular there are theories with massive gravitons. The point you read, even in wikipedia, is that if a massless spin-2 particle is found then it must be a graviton, not the other way around.

kodama said:
the higgs boson then does not couple to gravitons. but since the higgs boson carries energy, then gravitons must couple to the higgs boson. is it possible the higgs boson mass of 126 gev is the result of higgs coupling to gravitons
who knows?
if you say that gravitons allow particles to interact gravitationally, then the gravitons would couple to the Higgs boson.

kodama said:
so if gravitons couple to both the higgs field and higgs boson based on energy, why doesn't the gravitons gain mass?
As I mentioned above, gravitons could be massive. Also it may not necessarily get its mass from the Higgs field.
 
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  • #5
There are very tight upper limits on the possible masses of gravitons (those leading to the long-distance gravity), and good reasons to expect them to be exactly massless to produce GR in the classical limit. There could be additional massive gravitons.
 
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  • #6
ChrisVer said:
This is not a general rule, since it depends on how you build the interaction... for example the gluons are massless (to our knowledge) but the strong force does not have an infinite range... that is because QCD is built as such.
Gravitons are hypothetical particles and we don't have a theoretical framework (like we do for gravity through General Relativity) from which we can say things like "contradicting observation". In particular there are theories with massive gravitons. The point you read, even in wikipedia, is that if a massless spin-2 particle is found then it must be a graviton, not the other way around.who knows?
if you say that gravitons allow particles to interact gravitationally, then the gravitons would couple to the Higgs boson.As I mentioned above, gravitons could be massive. Also it may not necessarily get its mass from the Higgs field.
gluons don't couple to the Higgs. gravitons do.

this post presumes gravitons, possibly from string-m-theory exist.
string theory claim to fame is it is the only known framework that can incorporate gravitons and is the only known theory of QG that gives GR

gravitons in string theory are massless spin-2 particles that couples to all forms of energy, including itself and to the higgs field and higgs boson.

every elementary particle that couples to the higgs field acquires mass. higgs field carries energy. gravitons couple to the higgs field, acquiring mass. in GR gravity is infinite range.

it seems that a massless graviton that couples to the higgs field contradicts observation.
 
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  • #7
gravitons is QG, which is BSM which is where i originally posted this
 
  • #8
In the standard model, the electroweak gauge bosons acquire mass because portions of the Higgs field become a part of them. A massless spin 1 particle has two helicity states (-1 and +1), a massive spin 1 particle has three (-1, 0, +1), and in the standard model this extra state that the massive Ws and Zs possess, is nothing but one of the components of the Higgs field. "The Higgs boson" is actually the leftover part of the standard model Higgs field.

A massless graviton has two helicity states (-2, +2), a massive graviton has five (-2, -1, 0, +1, +2). The standard model Higgs field does not have the right properties to supply the necessary extra states.
 
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  • #9
mitchell porter said:
In the standard model, the electroweak gauge bosons acquire mass because portions of the Higgs field become a part of them. A massless spin 1 particle has two helicity states (-1 and +1), a massive spin 1 particle has three (-1, 0, +1), and in the standard model this extra state that the massive Ws and Zs possess, is nothing but one of the components of the Higgs field. "The Higgs boson" is actually the leftover part of the standard model Higgs field.

A massless graviton has two helicity states (-2, +2), a massive graviton has five (-2, -1, 0, +1, +2). The standard model Higgs field does not have the right properties to supply the necessary extra states.

a QG that is about gravitons, and higgs field does not interact with gravitons, why is the Planck scale of any relevance to higgs hierarchy problem?
 
  • #10
kodama said:
why is the Planck scale of any relevance to higgs hierarchy problem?
Because that's where (planck scale) we expect to find new physics if Standard Model is all there is. It is the natural cut-off energy scale of the theory (as SM is an effective field theory).
 
  • #11
ChrisVer said:
Because that's where (planck scale) we expect to find new physics if Standard Model is all there is. It is the natural cut-off energy scale of the theory (as SM is an effective field theory).

i understand there are various proposals for new physics. but if the only new physics are higher energy gravitons, how would that affect higgs?
 
  • #12
You don't actually have a graduate background in particle physics, do you? An A-level thread is going to go right over your head. What is the right level for this thread?
 
  • #13
kodama said:
higgs field does not interact with gravitons
Actually, it should, even in the absence of Higgs bosons, because of its nonzero vev.
kodama said:
if the only new physics are higher energy gravitons, how would that affect higgs?
In their 2006 paper (see equation 14), Shaposhnikov and Wetterich cite claims that the effect is modest.
 
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  • #14
mitchell porter said:
Actually, it should, even in the absence of Higgs bosons, because of its nonzero vev.
In their 2006 paper (see equation 14), Shaposhnikov and Wetterich cite claims that the effect is modest.

how robust are his results? if true, are there any particles heavier than top quark, i.e susy partners ?
 
  • #15
kodama said:
how robust are his results? if true, are there any particles heavier than top quark, i.e susy partners ?
Those questions appear to have no authoritative answers yet. They are a research opportunity.
 
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  • #16
mitchell porter said:
In the standard model, the electroweak gauge bosons acquire mass because portions of the Higgs field become a part of them. A massless spin 1 particle has two helicity states (-1 and +1), a massive spin 1 particle has three (-1, 0, +1), and in the standard model this extra state that the massive Ws and Zs possess, is nothing but one of the components of the Higgs field. "The Higgs boson" is actually the leftover part of the standard model Higgs field.

A massless graviton has two helicity states (-2, +2), a massive graviton has five (-2, -1, 0, +1, +2). The standard model Higgs field does not have the right properties to supply the necessary extra states.
How about introducing (an) extra Higgs doublet? Would this give something consistent? You would need three electrically neutral Higgs components, I suppose, so at least two extra Higgs doublets, right?

As I understand this thread, the (necessary) coupling of the graviton to the vev of the Higgs does not necessarily lead to a mass term for the graviton? I never really thought about this, it's a good question.
 
  • #17
kodama said:
but the higgs field carries energy, and gravitons must couple to the higgs field but remain massless.

The premise is not necessarily correct. Higgs field CAN carry energy, depending on its configuration. Just as electron field can carry energy, but in some configurations (zero field) it does not.

It is not a given that Higgs field in its VEV state has nonzero energy.
 
  • #18
nikkkom said:
It is not a given that Higgs field in its VEV state has nonzero energy.

What? It's 246 GeV!
 
  • #19
haushofer said:
How about introducing (an) extra Higgs doublet? Would this give something consistent? You would need three electrically neutral Higgs components, I suppose, so at least two extra Higgs doublets, right?

As I understand this thread, the (necessary) coupling of the graviton to the vev of the Higgs does not necessarily lead to a mass term for the graviton? I never really thought about this, it's a good question.
awww thanks u :)

yes that's right. since gravitons couple to the higgs, it should lead to a mass term for the graviton, giving gravitons mass, which contradicts the idea it is massless and has unlimited range.

i originally posted this in bsm since it is really about qg and higgs

btw sabine i have a thread in bsm on ur paper on lqg dark matter
 
  • #20
Linearized diffeomorphism invariance forbids a mass term, in a similar way that U(1) gauge invariance forbids a photon mass term. You are free to break the symmetry (as an axiom) if you wish, but then you will have to do work to show that you recover the successful predictions of ordinary GR. It is quite difficult to do this, as decades of work on massive gravity can attest too.
 
  • #21
Haelfix said:
Linearized diffeomorphism invariance forbids a mass term, in a similar way that U(1) gauge invariance forbids a photon mass term. You are free to break the symmetry (as an axiom) if you wish, but then you will have to do work to show that you recover the successful predictions of ordinary GR. It is quite difficult to do this, as decades of work on massive gravity can attest too.

doesn't the theory require the symmetry to be broken? how can gravitons avoid coupling to the higgs?
 
  • #22
Sorry the question doesn't make sense. What theory? Why would gravitons not couple to the Higgs?
 
  • #23
Haelfix said:
Sorry the question doesn't make sense. What theory? Why would gravitons not couple to the Higgs?
kodama said:
doesn't the theory require the symmetry to be broken? how can gravitons avoid coupling to the higgs?

i was alluding to this

Haelfix said:
Linearized diffeomorphism invariance forbids a mass term, in a similar way that U(1) gauge invariance forbids a photon mass term. You are free to break the symmetry (as an axiom) if you wish, but then you will have to do work to show that you recover the successful predictions of ordinary GR. It is quite difficult to do this, as decades of work on massive gravity can attest too.

my point is that the higgs mass term automatically breaks diffeomorphism invariance since gravitons couples to the higgs sector
 
  • #24
"my point is that the higgs mass term automatically breaks diffeomorphism invariance since gravitons couples to the higgs sector"

Ok, there is a lot of rudimentary misunderstanding here and its hard to disentangle. Write down mathematically the coupling of the "graviton to the Higgs sector", write down the Higgs mass term, and write down what diffeomorphism invariance is. Now try to make your sentence follow.
 
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  • #25
Vanadium 50 said:
What? It's 246 GeV!

This is not the energy density of vacuum filled with nonzero Higgs field. For one, it has wrong units: energy density should be in GeV/m^3 or similar.

My understanding is that currently SM has serious problem when one attempts to calculate energy density of vacuum: it diverges with scale -> 0. Even if we assume there is a natural cutoff scale and scale doesn't actually have to go to zero (LQG or something), even at EW-breaking scale SM predicts finite but huge energy density of vacuum. We do know that EW-breaking scale physics exists in Nature: we built accelerators and probed it.

This is clearly not consistent with observations. IOW: as of now, we don't know how to correctly calculate energy density of vacuum, Higgs field included.

If we don't want to throw GR out of the window, an improved theory should give zero, or quite tiny, energy density of vacuum.
 

1. What is the Higgs field?

The Higgs field is a theoretical field that permeates all of space and gives particles their mass. It was proposed by physicist Peter Higgs in the 1960s to explain why some particles have mass while others do not.

2. What is the Higgs boson?

The Higgs boson is a particle that is associated with the Higgs field. Its discovery in 2012 at the Large Hadron Collider confirmed the existence of the Higgs field and its role in giving particles mass.

3. How does the Higgs field interact with particles?

The Higgs field interacts with particles by giving them mass. As particles move through the field, they interact with the Higgs bosons, which slows them down and gives them mass.

4. What is the role of gravitons in the Higgs field?

Gravitons are hypothetical particles that are thought to be carriers of the force of gravity. While the Higgs field does not directly interact with gravitons, some theories suggest that the Higgs field may play a role in the unification of gravity with the other fundamental forces.

5. How does the Higgs field relate to the Standard Model of particle physics?

The Higgs field is an essential component of the Standard Model, which is the most widely accepted theory for understanding the fundamental particles and forces of the universe. It explains how particles acquire mass and is crucial for predicting the behavior of these particles at the subatomic level.

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