Searching for the Higgs Field: 95% Confidence of Existence

[Haelfix]

As far as your other question. If we don't find the Higgs at say the LHC, I lose faith in SUSY first and foremost. And well, things become interesting.

There are some rather contrived models that have Higgs like scalar fields at much higher energies, but they tend to either introduce far too much finetuning, or they add so many new fields it just confuses me to death (and my belief in theories that I don't understand is identically zero)

Now, do I lose faith in the standard model and some of the theoretical underpinnings of field theory? Tough question, I would certainly think about it a little bit (i'd imagine everyone would sanity check themselves), its kinda hard to unlearn two decades of research that we've internalized. Fortunately I don't work in that field, so I'd imagine my job is intact if I merely speculate about some of the rather hard to belief alternatives out there.

 

[Careful]

Fortunately I don't work in that field, so I'd imagine my job is intact if I merely speculate about some of the rather hard to belief alternatives out there.

Me neither and I have never really payed too much attention to QFT (since it seems to me to be more fundamentally flawed). The only comment I have is when you say that renormalizable theories are more likely to appear in nature than nonrenormalizable ones. My point of view is that this does not matter too much (if we probe any theory at sufficiently small energies the nonrenormalizable terms are not important anyway) - and I do not want to take the continuum limit in the first place. You could argue against this and say that I must construct then a criterion which picks out my bare coupling constants and rules out all other terms I would add during renormalization but - in case you are only worried about constructing theories which fit observation - why care about it ?

Cheers,

Careful

 

[Ernies]

As far as your other question. If we don't find the Higgs at say the LHC, I lose faith in SUSY first and foremost. And well, things become interesting.

Now, do I lose faith in the standard model and some of the theoretical underpinnings of field theory? Tough question, I would certainly think about it a little bit (i'd imagine everyone would sanity check themselves), its kinda hard to unlearn two decades of research that we've internalized. Fortunately I don't work in that field, so I'd imagine my job is intact if I merely speculate about some of the rather hard to belief alternatives out there.

You have my sympathy,Haelfix. I have had to unlearn a lot of physics twice, so a third time wouldn't be too hard----- and I think it inevitable in the next decade. May I might live to see it!

cheers

Ernie

 

[yquantumjumps]

Gentelmen/ladies,

I did not mean to cause this, I do not have the luxury to participate in this as I would like.

Bottom line is, dealing with the 'renormaliztion group' it is just a way of re-calibrating your search, that was so aptly said above ^^, and in this case the Higgs. You cannot fudge the factor in or it will not go unnoticed in the physics community.

Yes, to the reply dealing with our degrees and professors, I was also fortunate to have many professors that would tell us the same, 'stay of the box' or do not be afraid to create a workable mathematical approach to a problem.

Please excuse me on this generalization statement dealing with wonderful teachers and mentors. Well, most of them?

I just hope that data will give us the missing piece of the puzzle dealing with the Standard Model.

There was one statement about looking for the Higgs that caught my eye. Yes, but 50 years ago we did not have the LHC coming on line.

Happy New Year,
y