Does the Higgs field explain anything or go in circles?

[jeebs]

This might be a bit of a naive question but I am only just starting to learn the very basics of this stuff.

I'm hearing about being able to account for the mass of, well, massive particles, by saying that in our cool universe, there is this field pervading all of space that certain particles(fields?) can couple to that causes a resistance when they attempt to accelerate.

So, that made me think, what actually is making this drag happen? I mean, the Higgs boson (ie. the quantum of the Higgs field) is also supposed to have mass, right? If we have a massive particle having its acceleration hindered because it has to push its way through a load of particles that have mass, then aren't we just going in circles by invoking something that has mass to explain the mass of the familiar particles?

I am aware of how ignorant this question probably is... :)

 

[phinds]

I mean, the Higgs boson (ie. the quantum of the Higgs field) is also supposed to have mass, right?

Ah ... well, in a word ... no.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson

 

[jeebs]

Ah ... well, in a word ... no.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson

the first line of that link says

"The Higgs boson is a hypothetical massive elementary particle predicted to exist by the Standard Model of particle physics. "

Also, I thought that the reason it hadn't been observed yet was that we didn't have powerful enough accelerators to generate enough mass in collisions? (until LHC maybe?)

 

[phinds]

DOH !

I'm not only forgetful, I apparently can't read.

I was SURE the higgs boson was massless. I'm going to have to look into this more.

 

[tom.stoer]

The Higgs field solves a theoretical problem: we know that particles have mass, and for decades we had a well-known framework in QFT how to attribute mass to fields. Then there arised two problems: in electro-weak theory we have massive gauge fields (W- and Z-boson) and the simple mechanism to introduce a mass term is inconsistent in quantization (the renormalizability of the theory breaks down); in addition die to the chiral structure a similar problem arises for the mass term of the fermions (it would introduce an anomalous gauge current).

So the problem is to find a new mechanism for mass generation, which allows one to attribite mass to these fields while keeping mathematical consistency. The Higgs field is somehow a trick borrow from condensed matter physics where similar mechanism where already well-known. The main difference is that in the standard model the Higgs field is an elementary field, whereas in condensed matter physics similar fields are only effective fields i.e. made of more fundamnetal objects like electrons in condensed matter.

So we know we either need exactly this SM Higgs field (or some generalization) or we need a different mechanism which should mimic at low energies the Higgs field physics; the latter mechanism would replace the Higgs field with something more fundamental.

But in all these cases we know that we need a dynamical mechanism to produce the particle masses.

 

[Lapidus]

The Higgs field solves a theoretical problem: we know that particles have mass, and for decades we had a well-known framework in QFT how to attribute mass to fields.

What well-known framework attributes mass to fields? Are not all th masses, the masses of the six quarks, the three leptons, the two W bosons and the Z boson, as well as the Higgs boson all determined by experiments and must 'by hand' plugged into formulas. Theory does not tell us their values.

 

[tom.stoer]

Yes, you had to plug in masses by hand. But even this is not allowed in chiral gauge theories and for massive gauge bosons. The Higgs mechanism solves this problem as instead of plugging in masses one plugs in coupling constants. That does not solve the fundamental problem to explain the origin and the value of these constants, but it allows one to construct a model for the knonw interactions.

 

[jal]

But in all these cases we know that we need a dynamical mechanism to produce the particle masses.

I cannot find anything that is not dynamic.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1105.4184
Is geometry bosonic or fermionic?
Taylor L. Hughes, Andrew Randono
(Submitted on 20 May 2011)
It is generally assumed that the gravitational field is bosonic. Here we show that a simple propagating torsional theory can give rise to localized geometric structures that can consistently be quantized as fermions under exchange. To demonstrate this, we show that the model can be formally mapped onto the Skyrme model of baryons, and we use well-known results from Skyrme theory. This begs the question: {\it Is geometry bosonic or fermionic (or both)?}

In this paper we take geometry to include torsion in addition to the ordinary Riemannian geometry of a metric field.

Here is the dynamic image that I get.
http://www.wingmakers.co.nz/mer2.gif
[PLAIN]http://www.wingmakers.co.nz/mer2.gif