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Serra Nova
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The Higgs particle that were discovered in 2012 - what is it build of?
The Higgs has its own mass independent of the Higgs mechanism. This is unique to the Higgs (maybe apart from neutrinos).theoretical_p said:Higgs particle is massless and it gains mass through a process called Higgs process.
No, this poor analogy to describe the mathematics was invented later. It had nothing to do with the original idea of the Higgs mechanism.theoretical_p said:Professor Peter Higgs got the idea of Higgs process through a very well known fact . That is .. Consider one of your favorite film star happened to pass by a public street . Then people i.e. his fans will gather around him (for autograph or to take a selfie with him). And the number of people will start to increase . From this Peter Higgs got the idea of higgs process and higgs boson.
Drakkith said:As mfb said, it's a fundamental particle that isn't composed of anything else. This is just just like electrons, quarks, neutrinos, and other fundamental particles. None of them are composed of other things as far as we know.
You misunderstand. Those are not composite elements of quarks, they are TYPES of quarks.Serra Nova said:I've read that quarks are composed of up, down and charm quarks. On a very small scale, they might not be elementary..
phinds said:You misunderstand. Those are not composite elements of quarks, they are TYPES of quarks.
DanMP said:I read in Wikipedia that:
In the Standard Model, the Higgs particle is a boson with spin zero, no electric charge and no colour charge. It is also very unstable, decaying into other particles almost immediately.
If the Higgs particle decays, it doesn't mean that it is made of something smaller?
No. Particles are not blocks of "things" that [when decaying] break down to their constituents. Also the idea of smaller doesn't make sense for objects that are considered point-like. What happens resembles more a transition.DanMP said:it doesn't mean that it is made of something smaller?
Drakkith said:Well, consider the annihilation of an electron and a positron (anti-electron) to produce two gamma rays. Doesn't this mean that electrons are composed of gamma ray photons? Turns out that no, it doesn't. Particles can decay into other particles without needing to be composed of anything. You can think of it more like a transformation of one particle into something else, or a conversion of that particle's energy into another form.
Feeble Wonk said:Interesting. But this example considers an annihilation event where in two fermions release energy in the form of bosons. The Higgs decay results in the formation of two fermions. It seems different. I recognize that’s more or less a reversal of the transformation you described, but it does seem different.
The Higgs can decay to various particles. As an example, it can decay to two photons, or one photon and one Z, both are bosons. In all cases the Higgs stops existing and the decay products start existing.Feeble Wonk said:Interesting. But this example considers an annihilation event where in two fermions release energy in the form of bosons. The Higgs decay results in the formation of two fermions. It seems different. I recognize that’s more or less a reversal of the transformation you described, but it does seem different.
I believe that is in fact exactly how the Higgs was detected at the LHC. They weren't waiting around hoping a Higgs would wander in from space, they were smashing zillions of particles together and hoping a Higgs would pop out and eventually it did. Very rare though, apparently, at the energies currently available.rootone said:Is it possible that other stuff could be smashed together in the right way and produce a Higgs though?.
That's what the LHC is doing.rootone said:Is it possible that other stuff could be smashed together in the right way and produce a Higgs though?.
Drakkith said:... this mean that electrons are composed of gamma ray photons?...
To be made up of something implies some sort of substructure. Composite objects are always formed from smaller particles, which are themselves composed of smaller particles, all the way down to the elementary particles. But for elementary particles like the electron, we can find no substructure. There has been no indication that they are composed of any smaller particle. And if you want to say they might be made up of some sort of non-particle material, you might as well say they are made of energy since energy already fits this description well enough.DanMP said:No, but it may mean that the photons are made from (part of) "the stuff" present in the electrons ...
It is impossible for particles to be made from some same/similar stuff and, when they decay/collide, that stuff to form other particles?
You wrote that it's like the energy of the particle is converted into another form, but energy and mass are related, so why is impossible to have something material inside the particles, something that can be converted into something else?
In this case photons would have to have mass. They do not.DanMP said:No, but it may mean that the photons are made from (part of) "the stuff" present in the electrons ...
A muon decays into an electron, a muon-neutrino, and an electron-antineutrino. That doesn't mean that a muon is made of those particles, or that they share smaller constituents. In fact, a muon is (as far as we know) just as "elementary" and "pointlike" as an electron, or a neutrino, or an antineutrino.DanMP said:If the Higgs particle decays, it doesn't mean that it is made of something smaller?
Drakkith said:To be made up of something implies some sort of substructure. Composite objects are always formed from smaller particles, which are themselves composed of smaller particles, all the way down to the elementary particles. But for elementary particles like the electron, we can find no substructure. There has been no indication that they are composed of any smaller particle. And if you want to say they might be made up of some sort of non-particle material, you might as well say they are made of energy since energy already fits this description well enough.
Also, given that two particles under enormous collision energies produce all sorts of other particles, it makes more sense to me to say that energy is converted to other forms (other particles) instead of inventing an unobserved substructure and attributing some of this particle production to that substructure being changed. Why do all that when you already have an explanation that fits the observations and calculations perfectly well and have nothing showing it's incorrect?
That doesn't mean that what you suggest is impossible, it just means that it makes things more complicated than necessary and adds nothing of value to our current description.
It's not clear but you seem to have still not gotten it that there IS NO "stuff" in fundamental particles. That's why they are called fundamental (actually elementary)DanMP said:This is an analogy of what I meant with the "same stuff" as common ingredient for all "fundamental" particles.
DanMP said:I have more (and solid) reasons to ask and think about this new, lower level in the structure of matter and about the Higgs boson composition/formation in particular, but I'm not allowed to explain (personal ideas/theories are banned). All I can (and want to) say is that my reasons and my main theory are related with something we (you) don't yet understand, dark matter/energy, so it may add something of value to our current description of the Universe.
Not more abstract than the electron itself, except for if you have ever seen an electron... ["made of" is not a nice expression]DanMP said:I'm not very happy with the idea that "they are made of energy". This is too abstract.
A concrete ball is made out of atoms. If the elementary particles would be made out of something else in a similar way, all our predictions wouldn't have any reason to fit. But they fit - with excellent precision in cases like the electron g-factor.DanMP said:Imagine a concrete ball. That ball is not sand, nor gravel, nor water, it is something made from those ingredients (and more), but different ... and also a whole, not a system with moving parts (at least apparently). If you smash it, you obtain different pieces, with different shapes and proprieties (cutting edges, not rolling, etc.). Two or more smashed/crushed balls can be used to form a new concrete thing, maybe a cube. This is an analogy of what I meant with the "same stuff" as common ingredient for all "fundamental" particles.
Exactly.DanMP said:This means that the Higgs particle is an excitation in the Higgs field?
Whose fault is this? Did you learn QFT?DanMP said:How you digest this? I can't.
Calculate the electron g-factor. If the result agrees, publish it, then we can talk about it.DanMP said:All I can (and want to) say is that my reasons and my main theory are related with something we (you) don't yet understand, dark matter/energy, so it may add something of value to our current description of the Universe.
ChrisVer said:Not more abstract than the electron itself, ...
Imagination is good as long as it goes along with what we observe (look at mfb's post). If it's not, then it's irrelevant. Even if you want to add substructure to elementary particles, via means that they can still agree with the precision measurements, you will still need to introduce these new elementary particles and so on... [as the atom was replaced by protons,neutrons and electrons].
ChrisVer said:Now are particles mere energy? That's philosophy, but in some sense that's true, as you can produce them by colliding particles at necessary energies.
The Higgs particle is a subatomic particle that is believed to be made up of the Higgs field, which is a type of energy field that permeates the entire universe.
The Higgs particle was first theorized by Peter Higgs and other scientists in the 1960s. It was later discovered in 2012 at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland through the collision of protons at high energies.
The Higgs particle is a crucial component of the Standard Model, which is a theory that describes the fundamental particles and forces that make up the universe. It is responsible for giving other particles mass through interactions with the Higgs field.
The Higgs particle interacts with other particles through the Higgs field. As particles move through this field, they gain mass through the Higgs mechanism. The strength of this interaction depends on the mass of the particle.
No, the Higgs particle cannot be observed or measured directly as it is extremely short-lived and decays almost immediately after being produced. Scientists can only indirectly observe its effects through the particles it decays into.