Higgs & Inflaton: Does New Boson Discovery Change Anything?

[skydivephil]

So now CERN have announced a 4.9 sigma discovery of a new Boson most likely the Higgs does this make the existence of the inlaton more pluasible , less plausible or make no difference whatsoever?

 

[Chalnoth]

So now CERN have announced a 4.9 sigma discovery of a new Boson most likely the Higgs does this make the existence of the inlaton more pluasible , less plausible or make no difference whatsoever?

I don't see how it makes a difference. Any difference the Higgs discovery will make depends upon its properties and what they say about the details of high energy physics. That is to say, is the Higgs precisely a standard model Higgs, or are there measurable differences? There *may* be a deficiency in the tau/anti-tau decay signal, which could give some clues, but the statistics aren't there yet to be sure.

Once the properties of this particle are more precisely-determined, we should have a clearer picture of what the Higgs has to say about high-energy physics. And that may or may not inform us about the details of inflation (inflation can easily happen at even higher energies, energies that are not accessible at the LHC).

 

[skydivephil]

I wasnt thinking along those lines, clealry the LHC is very far from the energy scales of inflation. I was thinking now we have a firm example of a scalar boson, did we have that before already or not?

 

[Chalnoth]

I wasnt thinking along those lines, clealry the LHC is very far from the energy scales of inflation. I was thinking now we have a firm example of a scalar boson, did we have that before already or not?

No, but I'm not sure anybody within physics thought that was a problem.

 

[skydivephil]

Yes I do think it was no surprise. But if the Higgs was shown not to exist do you not think that maybe that would make the existence of another scalar ie the inflaton a little less likely ?

 

[Chalnoth]

Yes I do think it was no surprise. But if the Higgs was shown not to exist do you not think that maybe that would make the existence of another scalar ie the inflaton a little less likely ?

Perhaps you mean a little less unlikely? Personally, no, I don't think so at all. Perhaps it removes one specious objection to the inflaton, but that's it.

 

[skydivephil]

Yes that's kind of what I was thinking, thanks for the reply Chalnoth

 

[lpetrich]

All of the "elementary particles" with spin 0 known until now are mesons, and those are quark-antiquark bound states. It's possible to have spin-0 glueballs and spin-0 tetraquarks and the like, but I don't know of any convincing claims that any of them have discovered.

"Elementary particle" is now a misnomer for hadrons, since hadrons are bound states. It's like how "atom" is now a misnomer.Despite their both having spin 0, the Higgs particle cannot be the inflaton, of course. Their energy scales are too different.