I Is the Higgs Field Solely Responsible for Imparting Mass to Particles?

jnorman
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I am trying to understand the Higgs field. I understand that mass and charge are measurable characteristics of particles. I have read that the concept of the Higgs field was to explain how particles have mass. The Higgs field supposedly "imparts" mass to particles which would not have mass if the Higgs field was not present.

Does this imply that charge is "imparted" to particles by the electromagnetic field? (I have not read anything that indicates such a thing.). If that is not how a particle has charge, and it is assumed that particles have charge intrinsically, why can we not assume that particles likewise have mass intrinsically?
Thanks.
 
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jnorman said:
Does this imply that charge is "imparted" to particles by the electromagnetic field?
No. Charge and mass are completely different things.
jnorman said:
why can we not assume that particles likewise have mass intrinsically?
Giving particles a charge is easy (and even unavoidable) in quantum field theory, while "just giving mass" for some particles breaks very fundamental parts of the theory. I don't see how to explain that in more detail without going too much into quantum field theory.
 
jnorman said:
why can we not assume that particles likewise have mass intrinsically

As already said, giving charge is easy because it doesn't violate any symmetry...
Fermion masses are prohibited by chiral symmetry and Vector Boson masses are forbidden by gauge invariance.
In other words, put masses by hand and you won't have the standard model symmetry anymore.
 
jnorman said:
I am trying to understand the Higgs field. I understand that mass and charge are measurable characteristics of particles. I have read that the concept of the Higgs field was to explain how particles have mass. The Higgs field supposedly "imparts" mass to particles which would not have mass if the Higgs field was not present.

http://profmattstrassler.com/articl...higgs-field-works-with-math/1-the-basic-idea/
http://profmattstrassler.com/articl...-basics/fields-and-their-particles-with-math/
 

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