Tapping the Higgs Field

In summary, the energy of the Higgs field is smaller than that at zero vev and so your question is fundamentally misguided.
  • #1
jtlz
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4
What sci-fi story (tv, movies, etc.) has been written that involves tapping the higgs field?

Do you know there is a constant 246 GeV everywhere.. our mass is only very very tiny portion occupying space so there is a great amount of untapped energy there...

Our particles tap the energy of the higgs field by producing mass.. so what sci-fi devices could be constructed that can tap the energy of the Higgs field?

1. What sci-fi device can you focus the energy of the higgs field to produce a plasma for weaponry?
the 246GeV is just a field.. how do you turn it into a particle plasma of 246 GeV?

2. What sci-fi device can you use as generator to tap the higgs field energy?

etc.

Creative team, share your sci-fi knowledge and imagination!
 
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  • #2
jtlz said:
Do you know there is a constant 246 GeV everywhere.. our mass is only very very tiny portion occupying space so there is a great amount of untapped energy there...
Do not confuse the Higgs vev with an accessible energy. The energy at the Higgs vev is smaller than that at zero vev and so your question is fundamentally misguided.
 
  • #3
Orodruin said:
Do not confuse the Higgs vev with an accessible energy. The energy at the Higgs vev is smaller than that at zero vev and so your question is fundamentally misguided.

zero vev is in the early electroweak era of the Big Bang.. now we have non zero vev 246GeV everywhere after electroweak symmetry breaking. Since it is present in all of space.. it is here with us in our universe now giving rise to our masses.. if it would return to zero vev.. we would lose all mass (at least those produced by the Higgs mechanism and not kinetic energy of quarks) and the weak and em forces would combine again.
 
  • #4
Technobabble is sure faster than light when it is about catching up to science:doh:
 
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  • #5
jtlz said:
Do you know there is a constant 246 GeV everywhere.. our mass is only very very tiny portion occupying space so there is a great amount of untapped energy there...

That is not true.
 
  • #6
Vanadium 50 said:
That is not true.

May I know where is the 246GeV vev Higgs field located? is it not everywhere and in the very room I'm now giving masses to my particles?
 
  • #7
That's just word salad.
 
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  • #8
After electroweak symmetry breaking, it appears all the energy of the Higgs field were bestowed to particles getting mass so there is no extra energy of higgs field left?

So I guess no free lunch.
 
  • #9
jtlz said:
, it appears all the energy of the Higgs field were bestowed to particles getting mass so there is no extra energy of higgs field left?

That's not true either. It doesn't even make any sense.
 
  • #10
May I know what part doesn't make sense. I must have misread it then. I got the idea after reading Peterdonis message who stated:

https://www.physicsforums.com/threa...during-the-gut-and-electroweak-epochs.936288/

"Before the phase transition, heuristically, we have the following quantum fields for the three non-gravitational interactions:

8 gluons (strong interaction)
W1, W2, W3, B (electroweak interaction)
H+, H-, H0, H0* (Higgs)

The key point is that all of the above fields are massless.

After the phase transition, heuristically, we now have the following fields:

8 gluons (strong interaction)
W+, W-, Z (weak interaction)
p (photon--electromagnetic interaction)
H (Higgs boson)

Here the gluons and the photons are massless, while the W+, W-, Z, and H all have mass. What has happened? Notice that three fields have apparently disappeared: there were four Higgs fields before, now there is only one. What happened to the other three? They were "eaten" by the W+, W-, and Z. But something else also happened: before we had W1, W2, W3, and B, and now we have W+, W-, Z, and p. Heuristically, what happened was this:

W+ = W1 + i W2, "eats" H+ and gains mass
W- = W2 - i W2, "eats" H- and gains mass
Z = cos θ W3 - sin θ B, "eats" a combination of H0 and H0* and gains mass
p = cos θ B + sin θ W3
H = what's left of the combination of H0 and H0* after the Z has "eaten" part of it"

So I took it that the original Higgs were mostly eaten up with mixes of ingredients (mixing angles). What's left is the Higgs boson. So you are right the 3/4 of the energy of the Higgs fields were gone (eaten up). How about the 1/4 left. It seems you can only produce Higgs boson in the LHC if there is enough energy to manifest it. But does it mean the remaining Higgs boson field still has energy of 246 GeV all around? How did it lose the energy. What originally eat it??

So I was wrong we can tap the energy of the Higgs field. I just wrote this thread to see all this from another angle and to realize my mistakes. And to understand why sci-fi stuff hasn't used the Higgs field in their story. Maybe they are all just very clever knowing the details of the electroweak symmetry breaking (or don't know about them enough to write anything).

But then isn't it we may be living in either false or true vacuum? If false vacuum.. then perhaps there may still be some potential to harvest or tap before we reach the true vacuum..
 
  • #11
jtlz said:
So you are right the 3/4 of the energy of the Higgs fields were gone (eaten up).

I said no such thing. You've now quadrupled down on putting words in others' mouths. I have nothing more to say to you.
 
  • #12
Can you at least share what is the right concept?

So is the higgs field 246 GeV vev still around us and we only interacting with it when we measure mass (or when particle has mass).. or does the eating up occurred in the electroweak era meaning all particles got masses and the higgs field 246 GeV were all used up already?
 
  • #13
jtlz said:
Can you at least share what is the right concept?

So is the higgs field 246 GeV vev still around us and we only interacting with it when we measure mass (or when particle has mass).. or does the eating up occurred in the electroweak era meaning all particles got masses and the higgs field 246 GeV were all used up already?
Again, you have an entirely wrong idea of what it means for the Higgs field to have this vev. It is not an energy that is ”stored” in the Higgs field. The only remedy is that you learn what the theory actually says rather than make up your own interpretations based on whatever popularised account you have read.

The reason nobody has ”used” this concept in a story is likely that it is pure bogus and not how the theory works.
 
  • #14
Orodruin said:
Again, you have an entirely wrong idea of what it means for the Higgs field to have this vev. It is not an energy that is ”stored” in the Higgs field. The only remedy is that you learn what the theory actually says rather than make up your own interpretations based on whatever popularised account you have read.

The reason nobody has ”used” this concept in a story is likely that it is pure bogus and not how the theory works.

Can you at least give a short statements what it means for the Higgs field to have certain vev like 246 GeV? I think more than 70% here doesn't know too.
 
  • #15
What does it ”mean” for an electric field to have a value of 23 V/m? The questions are similar. It is just the value of the field. How that relates to any energy stored in the field is a completely different issue.

The point of a vev is that it corresponds to the lowest energy configuration. Obviously no energy can be taken out of this configuration.
 
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  • #16
Orodruin said:
What does it ”mean” for an electric field to have a value of 23 V/m? The questions are similar. It is just the value of the field. How that relates to any energy stored in the field is a completely different issue.

The point of a vev is that it corresponds to the lowest energy configuration. Obviously no energy can be taken out of this configuration.

You mean just like birds sitting on top of 50Kilovolts power lines, they don't get electrocuted because they are not grounded? In the Higgs fields.. what if you can ground it (or extract the 246 GeV with respect to the true vacuum or ground state), then it can do work?
 
  • #17
jtlz said:
You mean just like birds sitting on top of 50Kilovolts power lines, they don't get electrocuted because they are not grounded? In the Higgs fields.. what if you can ground it (or extract the 246 GeV with respect to the true vacuum or ground state), then it can do work?
No. There is absolutely no reason to make this analogy. Please stop inventing your own stuff. There are rules against that on PF, even in the scifi forum.
 
  • #18
jtlz said:
You mean just like birds sitting on top of 50Kilovolts power lines, they don't get electrocuted because they are not grounded?

Not quite. A value of 50 kV does not represent the lowest energy configuration of the EM field. Since the field is not in its lowest energy configuration, it can do work and lose that energy. You cannot extract energy from the Higgs field if it is in its lowest energy state. To put energy into the Higgs field, we generally have to collide particles together to create a Higgs boson, which is an excitation of the field similar to how photons are excitations of the EM field.
 
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  • #19
Drakkith said:
Not quite. A value of 50 kV does not represent the lowest energy configuration of the EM field. Since the field is not in its lowest energy configuration, it can do work and lose that energy. You cannot extract energy from the Higgs field if it is in its lowest energy state. To put energy into the Higgs field, we generally have to collide particles together to create a Higgs boson, which is an excitation of the field similar to how photons are excitations of the EM field.

So is the Higgs field now zero vev or 246GeV vev?.. I thought after electroweak symmetry breaking, the higgs field got vev of 246 GeV. Where is the 246 GeV now?
 
  • #20
jtlz said:
So is the Higgs field now zero vev or 246GeV vev?.. I thought after electroweak symmetry breaking, the higgs field got vev of 246 GeV. Where is the 246 GeV now?
Again. That is not an actual energy that is available to you. It is not what it means to have a vev. It just sets the SM mass scale. The vev is everywhere because having that vev is the lowest energy configuration the field can have.
 
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  • #21
jtlz said:
So is the Higgs field now zero vev or 246GeV vev?.. I thought after electroweak symmetry breaking, the higgs field got vev of 246 GeV. Where is the 246 GeV now?

The vacuum expectation value does not represent a quantity of energy that is available for anything. As Orodruin said, the VEV quantity just sets the mass scale. In other words, 246 GeV is the value of a parameter used when setting up the standard model that makes other parameters take on certain other values. The details of what this means is very complicated and requires understanding some mathematical and physical concepts that even I don't understand, otherwise I would try to explain them further.
 
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  • #22
Ok..for illustration and understanding purposes. What would happen if the electron field had vacuum expectation value of 280 GeV.. i know only the Higgs have non zero vev. But if it were to happen to the electron. What would happen to physics in our world? This is just to understand and appreciate the nature of vev.
 
  • #23
The electron field cannot have a vev.
 
  • #24
Drakkith said:
Not quite. A value of 50 kV does not represent the lowest energy configuration of the EM field. Since the field is not in its lowest energy configuration, it can do work and lose that energy. You cannot extract energy from the Higgs field if it is in its lowest energy state. To put energy into the Higgs field, we generally have to collide particles together to create a Higgs boson, which is an excitation of the field similar to how photons are excitations of the EM field.

We can't extract energy from the higgs field. I understood this..i understood only the particles that can be higgsed by the higgs field weak hypercharge and weak isospin can extract the energy from the higgs field to produce masses.. do you think this choice of words are illustrative and correct?

What i meant initially was science fiction can mention about the higgs by saying say the holodeck can produce raw massless gauged particles that can be higgsed by the higgs field weak isospin and hypercharge and hence extract energy from the higgs (to produce mass and convert it to energy etc). Star trek stories can use this explanation..isnt it.
 
  • #25
jtlz said:
do you think this choice of words are illustrative and correct?
No.
 
  • #26
Orodruin said:
No.

Im reading this https://profmattstrassler.com/artic...known-particles-if-the-higgs-field-were-zero/

Maybe i shouldn't use puns and stick to standard terms.

Whatever just give me any sci fi stories.. movies that uses any concept of higgs field.. perhaps one of the x-men characters can turn any object higgs field to zero vev etc. Stan Lee is very creative. The comics can run out of ideas soon.
 
  • #27
jtlz said:
What i meant initially was science fiction can mention about the higgs by saying say the holodeck can produce raw massless gauged particles that can be higgsed by the higgs field weak isospin and hypercharge and hence extract energy from the higgs (to produce mass and convert it to energy etc). Star trek stories can use this explanation..isnt it.

No, no energy is extracted from the Higgs field to give a particle mass. During particle creation, such as when we collide protons together in a particle collider, the energy comes from the kinetic energy of the protons, not from the higgs field. You could use your explanation in a show or book if you wanted to, but it would be sci-fi and not science.
 
  • #28
Drakkith said:
No, no energy is extracted from the Higgs field to give a particle mass. During particle creation, such as when we collide protons together in a particle collider, the energy comes from the kinetic energy of the protons, not from the higgs field. You could use your explanation in a show or book if you wanted to, but it would be sci-fi and not science.

But read this here "And the non-zero Higgs field, whose presence causes the flipping back and forth between top-left and top-right, endows this mixture with an additional intrinsic energy, even when it is sitting still"..

https://profmattstrassler.com/artic...known-particles-if-the-higgs-field-were-zero/

"Fig. 5 shows a sketch. When the Higgs field is not zero, a top-left particle would travel at the speed of light, alone. The same would be true of a top-right. But when the Higgs field is not zero, its presence, and the fact that it has a direct interaction with the top-left and the top-right, forces the top-left to convert over to a top-right, and back again. How often does this happen? About a 100 trillion trillion (100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) times a second. This conversion process makes it impossible for us to think of the top-left and the top-right as separate particles, because they are inextricably linked together; if you have one, you will very soon have the other. (You never have both at the same time, which is why the top quark remains elementary, not composite.) We call this mixture of these two particles the top quark, collectively. And the non-zero Higgs field, whose presence causes the flipping back and forth between top-left and top-right, endows this mixture with an additional intrinsic energy, even when it is sitting still. That intrinsic energy is indistinguishable from mass-energy (E=m c-squared energy); it behaves the same way in experiments. In other words, what we call the mass-energy of the top quark is really, if you prefer, the energy it picks up when sitting in a non-zero Higgs field. Take the Higgs field away — make it zero — and the top quark goes back to being two separate massless particles, the top-right and top-left."
 
  • #29
Thread closed for moderation.

edit: Not sci-fi so this will remain locked.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

1. What is the Higgs Field?

The Higgs Field is a theoretical concept in particle physics that describes a field permeating the entire universe. It is responsible for giving particles their mass, and is associated with the Higgs Boson, a subatomic particle that was discovered in 2012.

2. Why is tapping the Higgs Field important?

Tapping the Higgs Field could potentially unlock new advances in our understanding of the universe and lead to new technologies. It could also help us answer fundamental questions about the origins of the universe and the nature of matter.

3. How do scientists tap the Higgs Field?

Scientists use large particle accelerators, such as the Large Hadron Collider, to create high-energy collisions between particles. These collisions can produce Higgs Bosons, which provide evidence of the existence of the Higgs Field.

4. What are the potential applications of tapping the Higgs Field?

Potential applications include the development of new energy sources, improved medical imaging techniques, and advancements in quantum computing. Tapping the Higgs Field could also provide insight into dark matter and dark energy, two mysterious components of the universe.

5. Are there any risks associated with tapping the Higgs Field?

Currently, there are no known risks associated with tapping the Higgs Field. However, as with any scientific advancement, it is important to continue research and ethical considerations to ensure the safety and responsible use of this technology.

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