What does the Higgs particle consist of?

In summary: In the case of the Higgs boson, it turns out that the particle does decay into other particles, but that doesn't mean that it is made of anything smaller.
  • #36
Feeble Wonk said:
suggesting intuitively that extra points were “hiding inside” the previously single point
That's your flaw. You make a suggestion that is based upon a misconception. You seem like you are trying to conserve something, when there is no such conservation law. The creation of particles/antiparticles is following other conservation laws (charge, energy/momentum, etc).
Again there is no intuition applicable/available if you haven't studied the theory that addresses the problem. Do that without a common ground of understanding the quantum world and you'll be discussing philosophy, as most of the popsci authors/spokespersons are doing.
 
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  • #37
mfb said:
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.Exactly.Whose fault is this? Did you learn QFT?Calculate the electron g-factor. If the result agrees, publish it, then we can talk about it.

I probably learned QFT long time ago, but I never used it, so I forgot most of it.

I searched QFT in Wikipedia and found this:
QFT was historically widely believed to be truly fundamental. It is now believed, primarily due to the continued failures of quantization of general relativity, to be only a very good low-energy approximation, i.e. an effective field theory, to some more fundamental theory.

You are right in most of what you wrote (electron g-factor, no mass in the gamma ray photons) and it is very hard to solve all the problems raised by this quest to a lower level, but not impossible. I have promising ideas ... The problem is that this is not my first goal ... Not even the second. Sorry.

Let's return to the Higgs particle, the main topic here. If the Higgs particle is an excitation in the Higgs field, how it decays in two or more excitations in other field(s)?
 
  • #38
DanMP said:
I probably learned QFT long time ago, but I never used it, so I forgot most of it.
Refresh your memory... on the same topic:
DanMP said:
If the Higgs particle is an excitation in the Higgs field, how it decays in two or more excitations in other field(s)?
[itex] y_{ha} h \bar{\psi}_a \psi_a \in \mathcal{L}[/itex]

DanMP said:
I have promising ideas
we "don't discuss personal ideas" here?
 
  • #39
How can you have "promising ideas" if you don't even remember the most basic basics of QFT? Seriously? If you want to improve physics you have to know exactly what has been done so far and what is left to improve. And to have that knowledge you have to study textbooks, not wikipedia...
 
  • #40
ChrisVer said:
[itex] y_{ha} h \bar{\psi}_a \psi_a \in \mathcal{L}[/itex]

Sorry, but this is a B level topic. Please elaborate.

weirdoguy said:
How can you have "promising ideas"...

We don't discuss personal ideas here, so I can not answer.

Please focus on Higgs particle and, maybe, answer my last question.
 
  • #41
DanMP said:
Sorry, but this is a B level topic. Please elaborate.
Although that was connected to "having studied QFT" (supposingly the standard model as well), the answer is simple:
It can: No violation of any known conservation law. Given that the coupling constants [itex]y_{ha}[/itex] are non-zero. the Higgs field is coupled with the 2 fermion fields (except for on-shell tops because that violates the conservation of energy).
 
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  • #42
DanMP said:
Thank you for pointing out that, for a long period of time, the atom was considered elementary ...
Before atoms could be actually studied, and often mainly in a philosophical way.
The situation is not comparable to today.
DanMP said:
I have promising ideas
Let me be direct: No you do not, and you are wasting your time following "ideas" if you don't learn QFT first.
DanMP said:
If the Higgs particle is an excitation in the Higgs field, how it decays in two or more excitations in other field(s)?
The Higgs field interacts with other fields - via the term ChrisVer posted.
 
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  • #43
ChrisVer said:
That's your flaw. You make a suggestion that is based upon a misconception. You seem like you are trying to conserve something, when there is no such conservation law. The creation of particles/antiparticles is following other conservation laws (charge, energy/momentum, etc).

Apologies... I didn’t make my question clear. I was conceding that the “intuitive” concept was flawed. What I was hoping for was a layperson friendly explanation of the limiting energetic factors that define the “elemental” designation of a particle.
I suppose I should add that it would be more helpful if that definition wasn’t limited solely to the aspect of locality... such as, an elemental particle exists when all energetic parameters can be attributed to a specific point in space.
Is it possible to offer a succinct explanation of the limiting energetic factors at a specific point in space that, if exceeded or altered, result in new/different point particle manifestations. I suppose that this would simply be a list of the conserved energetic qualities/quantities at the given point in space, but there must be a reason for the energetic limits that dictate spontaneous decay into other particles.
 
  • #44
Feeble Wonk said:
What I was hoping for was a layperson friendly explanation of the limiting energetic factors that define the “elemental” designation of a particle
The particles have a set of quantum numbers that identify and define them. These can be the charge, the mass, the spin, and so on... those numbers originate from symmetries/conservations that manifest themselves in particle physics.

Feeble Wonk said:
if exceeded or altered, result in new/different point particle manifestations
No. Possible decays (1 particle going to N others) are randomly taking place.
Interactions (2 or more particles going to N others) also have certain probabilities to give certain outcomes... eg colliding an electron with a positron with enough energy (to conserve it for the creation of masses for both outcomes) can give you a 2 photons, 2 muons, but it can also give you quarks.
 
  • #45
ChrisVer said:
No. Possible decays (1 particle going to N others) are randomly taking place.
But, as we’ve seen with the Higgs boson, some particles are very unstable. They require extremely high energy collisions to be produced, and then decay “almost immediately”. That doesn’t seem completely random.
 
  • #46
Feeble Wonk said:
But, as we’ve seen with the Higgs boson, some particles are very unstable. They require extremely high energy collisions to be produced, and then decay “almost immediately”. That doesn’t seem completely random.

Various particles have a larger or smaller chance of being created at a certain collision energy than others. But at any collision energy, the specific particles created are still determined randomly per their different "weights".
 
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  • #47
First of all, it is random... a tau lepton let's say has a mean lifetime of about 0.3 picosecond... now when a particular tau lepton decays is randomly taken from some distribution (eg poisson)... the mean lifetime only tells you if you had a sample of 100 taus, after that time the taus that decayed were 100/e and so on...
Feeble Wonk said:
They require extremely high energy collisions
Not very extreme... the protons had like 7-8TeV center-of-mass energy, but that's not the energy that goes into the collision of the proton constituents (that share only a small portion of that energy). The Higgs needs ~125GeV energy to be produced - you only have to make sure you collide things that are coupled to the Higgs more strongly than other particles, otherwise you'll be swelled in background. LHC, colliding protons, does not favor the production of Higgs BUT it bypassed that problem because it achieves a tremendous amount of collisions. The number of data is one important parameter; it made LHCb compete the B-factories that collide electrons-positrons. Oversimplifying, you can deduce a discovery with let's say 10 clean data collected over a year, or with 1,000,000 unclean data collected in 1 month (~12* for the year).

Feeble Wonk said:
That doesn’t seem completely random.
That's why probabilities are important. Something that is more or less probable is still random.
 
  • #48
ChrisVer said:
Although that was connected to "having studied QFT" (supposingly the standard model as well), the answer is simple:
It can: No violation of any known conservation law. Given that the coupling constants [itex]y_{ha}[/itex] are non-zero. the Higgs field is coupled with the 2 fermion fields (except for on-shell tops because that violates the conservation of energy).

Ok, thank you!
 
  • #49
Drakkith said:
Various particles have a larger or smaller chance of being created at a certain collision energy than others. But at any collision energy, the specific particles created are still determined randomly per their different "weights".

ChrisVer said:
That's why probabilities are important. Something that is more or less probable is still random.

All points conceded. You are both quite correct, of course. It’s all about energy requirements and probabilities, and the “elemental” aspect to particle manifestation really is limited to the locality of defining physical characteristics at an individual “point” in space/time.
As has always been the case, the frustration for curious laypeople like myself is that physical descriptions at the fundamental level always seem to be far more “informational” in nature than ontological. Yet, sadly, I realize that that’s unavoidable. How does one describe “energy” ontologically? It’s a philosophical issue, and not a scientific question. Apologies.
 
  • #50
Feeble Wonk said:
. Yet, sadly, I realize that that’s unavoidable.
It's unavoidable because there is no intuition for what happens at the quantum level. Even explaining the true nature of an atom is impossible and most people imagine atoms as the solar system: nucleus in the center and electrons revolving around it. Although that's a good approximation in some cases, it's not true or what quantum-mechanics tells us. How to go even more fundamental?
People who work with those get their intuition out of the formulas or actual observables. Eg the electron mass is clearly seen at the Na22 beta decay spectrum (the large spike at ~500keV),:
Na22.png


of course there are more such examples or different experiments but I remember this particular out of heart because I did the experiment during my undergrad and it was nice to see actual positrons-electrons there. An alternative one was the Thompson experiment to measure q/m of the electron, and it was also nice as you could see the trajectory of the electron beam (of course you saw the result of electrons passing through the gas-ionizing it and after the gas atoms fell at the ground state they'd radiate visible light -like fluoride lights).
 

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<h2>1. What is the Higgs particle made of?</h2><p>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.</p><h2>2. How was the Higgs particle discovered?</h2><p>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.</p><h2>3. What is the role of the Higgs particle in the Standard Model of particle physics?</h2><p>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.</p><h2>4. How does the Higgs particle interact with other particles?</h2><p>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.</p><h2>5. Can the Higgs particle be observed or measured directly?</h2><p>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.</p>

1. What is the Higgs particle made of?

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.

2. How was the Higgs particle discovered?

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.

3. What is the role of the Higgs particle in the Standard Model of particle physics?

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.

4. How does the Higgs particle interact with other particles?

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.

5. Can the Higgs particle be observed or measured directly?

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.

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