The higgs-mechanism tag has no wiki summary.
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If $SU(2)_{L} \times U(1)_{Y}$ breaks to $U(1)_{em}$ when a non-zero mass for the Higgs boson is chosen, why do we still have weak interactions?
As I understand it, when we say that the $SU(2)_{L} \times U(1)_{Y}$ is broken via the Higgs mechanism, this is because the symmetry acts on the Higgs mass in a way that would change it's value. If we ...
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Your Mass is NOT from Higgs Boson
Your Mass is NOT from Higgs Boson?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ztc6QPNUqls
This guy can't be correct, right? He argues that because mostly of a nucleus' mass is made out of the space between ...
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Field content and symmetry groups of Minimal Composite Higgs Models
I'm trying to teach myself the Composite Higgs Model, both its theory and its LHC phenomenology (particularly the 4DCHM). Unfortunately, I'm struggling; the literature is contradictory and/or omits ...
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What is the process that gives mass to free relativitic particles?
When a free particle move in space with a known momentum and energy then what is the physical process that gives mass to that free (relativistic) particle?
What is role does the Higgs field in that ...
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Higgs boson/field symmetries and local symmetries
In the SM with gauge group U(1)xSU(2)xSU(3), those factors are associated to the gauge bosons associated with a local symmetry and the Higgs field provides masses to the elementary fermions AND the ...
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How to find the Higgs coupling with a mixing matrix?
It is known that the couplings to the Higgs are proportional to the mass for fermions;
$$g_{hff}=\frac{M_f}{v}$$
where $v$ is the VEV of the Higgs field. I'm trying to figure out why this is true ...
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1answer
166 views
What breaks the symmetry between the electromagnetic and weak nuclear force?
I know the electromagnetic force is mediated by a photon and the weak nuclear force is mediated by two massive bosons. Are there any other insights into why the masses are so different?
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1answer
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Does the Higgs mechanism address the spin statistics problem?
Since the Higgs mechanism is so intimately tied to binding together massless chiral fermions, does it happen to have anything to say about the spin statistics issue?
I'm actually assuming the answer ...
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Why do some particles have a greater mass than others?
The property of mass that almost every particle possesses comes from the Higgs Field. It is this field, which permeates all of space, that particles interact with and hence obtain mass.
But why do ...
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4answers
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The building blocks of energy
I have a couple of related questions that have been bothering me for a while. They might sound unscientific, but here is goes:
What are the building blocks of energy? What does energy consist of? Is ...
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Do all the particles acquire mass in the Standard Model due to the Higgs mechanism only?
I know that a mass term for an intermediate boson is not compatible with the gauge symmetry. But in principle a mass term for the electron field does not violate a gauge symmetry. However to build an ...
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1answer
249 views
Spontaneous symmetry breaking in SU(5) GUT?
At the end of this video lecture about grand unified theories, Prof. Susskind explains that there should be some kind of an additional Higgs mechanism at work, to break the symmetry between the ...
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why are two higgs doublets required in SUSY?
I can't really understand why two higgs doublets are required in SUSY.
From the literature, I have found opaque explanations that say something along the lines of: the superpotential W must be a ...
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54 views
In a composite Higgs, should the Z0 decay at the same rate that the neutral pion?
I am sorry to ask a question that obviously is a sum of separate questions about a process: Should the decay rate of Z0 be related to the decay of the "higgs" composite field it is eating? And, should ...
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1answer
87 views
In MSSM, are the higgs fields eaten by Z,W scalars or pseudoscalars?
I am very puzzled by the quintet of Higgs bosons in the MSSM: two charged, two scalars and a pseudoscalar. I wonder if they could be understood better if they were considered jointly with the three ...
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337 views
Does the Higgs Mechanism contradict Entropic Gravity?
Does the Higgs Mechanism contradict Entropic Gravity?
It seems like it probably does. But then again, one is a microscopic theory and the other is macroscopic. Can they live together in harmony? or ...
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Why is mass renormalization insufficient to explain electron mass?
In the Standard Model, I understand that the mass of the electron is assume to arise from two effects:
A bare mass given by Yukawa interaction with the Higgs field, and
A mass correction from mass ...
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1answer
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Origin of Higgs ghosts
In M. Veltman's Diagrammatica, appendix E, one can find the full Standard Model lagrangian. Some sectors (e.g fermion-Higgs and weak sectors) contain so-called Higgs ghosts $\phi^+,\phi^-$ and ...
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Why is the lightest Higgs not a free parameter in SUSY?
In the Standard Model, the Higgs mass doesn't really have any theoretical constraints. It could have basically any value and nothing 'breaks'.
However, in MSSM models, we often see the tree level ...
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1answer
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Is this a good explanation of the Higgs mechanism? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Is there an accepted analogy/conceptual aid for the Higgs field?
A video I watched explains the Higgs mechanism as follows.
Take massless particles. These can only ever ...
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Could one theoretically build the Higgs equivalent of a Faraday cage?
My understanding is, within quantum mechanics, in a pure vacuum, all known fields have a lowest energy state of zero. The Higgs field is the only exception -- it's lowest energy state is not zero. ...
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do Higgs Bosons happen in nature all the time? Rarely? Or do they only happen when the Higgs field is excited in a particle accelerator?
I'm trying to reconcile an apparent contradiction between explanations given by Dr. Cox in 2009 and 2012, and those given by a panel of Berkeley professors.
I'm not a physicist, and so I realize this ...
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Describing the Higgs mechanism to non-particle physicists
I'm sure I'm not the only person with this problem at the moment. I have been asked to give a public (not quite public, scientists, just not physicists) about 'this Higgs boson thing'. I am trying to ...
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264 views
What is the relationship between the Higgs field and quarks?
I have some difficulty considering the relative size of each and the meaning behind the shape of Higgs boson. I ask relating to the structures of both the Higgs field and quarks. How is it that the ...
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1answer
184 views
What gives matter Gravitational Mass? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Does the equivalence between inertial and gravitational mass imply anything about the Higgs mechanism?
In Higgs mechanism, Higgs field, which likes syrup, slows down ...
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Higgs Boson: The Big Picture
First, please pardon the ignorance behind this question. I know a fair amount of math but almost no physics.
I'm hoping someone can give me a brief "big picture" explanation of how physicists were ...
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Charge Analog of the Higgs Boson?
Since mass can be given to particles via the interaction with the Higgs Field could there be a "Charger Field" that supplies particles with charge? Possibly this would require two different "charger ...
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3answers
258 views
How come a photon acts like it has mass in a superconducting field?
I've heard the Higgs mechanism explained as analogous to the reason that a photon acts like it has mass in a superconducting field. However, that's not too helpful if I don't understand the latter. ...
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2answers
130 views
Do particles gain mass only at energy levels found during the big bang?
I am trying to make sure my understanding is correct.
At energies and temperatures found during the big bang (or at CERN recently), the Higgs mechanism comes into effect. When it does, there is a ...
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Relation among anomaly, unitarity bound and renormalizability
There is something I'm not sure about that has come up in a comment to other question:
Why do we not have spin greater than 2?
It's a good question--- the violation of renormalizability is linked
...
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1answer
118 views
Lepton masses in the Standard Model
Some simple questions regarding leptonic masses in the Standard Model (SM):
Why there is not an explicit mass term in addition to the effective mass term that arises from the Yukawa terms after ...
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2answers
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What sort of “mass” is explained by the Higgs mechanism?
When I asked this question (probably in a less neutral form) to physicists, their answer was something along the lines that it's not gravity (i.e. unrelated to gravitons) but inertial mass. (So I ...
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Higgs potential
The potential for the Higgs field is standard a quartic one (Mexican hat). Is this done for simplicity or are there fundamental reasons for this choice? I can imagine further contributions to this ...
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How can coupling with the higgs field slow a particle down?
Quantum Diaries has an interesting introduction to the higgs. It makes it seem like the way that the higgs field gives mass to particles is via all of the interactions with virtual higgs particles.
...
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324 views
Higgs field requires a large cosmological constant — does the Zero Point Field balance it?
I just read Wolfram's blog post on the Higgs discovery.
Still, there’s another problem. To get the observed particle masses,
the background Higgs field that exists throughout the universe has to
...
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3answers
257 views
Does Standard Model confirm that mass assigned by Higgs Mechanism creates gravitational field?
I am not comparing passive gravitational mass with rest inertial mass. Is there an evidence in Standard Model which says that active gravitational mass is essentially mass assigned by Higgs mechanism.
...
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How to calculate Rest Mass practically with Standard Model?
With relativistic physics, we can apply force to see resistance against acceleration. It'd give us relativistic mass and we have well established formula to get to the Rest Mass as long as we know the ...
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Why do we need Higgs field to re-explain mass, but not charge?
We already had definition of mass based on gravitational interactions since before Higgs. It's similar to charge which is defined based on electromagnetic interactions of particles.
Why did Higgs ...
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How does the Higgs mechanism work?
I'm not a particle physicist, but I did manage to get through the Feynman lectures without getting too lost.
Is there a way to explain how the Higgs field works, in a way that people like me might ...
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1answer
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Pauli-Villars (PV) regularisation breaks supersymmetry. How to see that?
Does the PV regulator breaks SUSY?
Take for instance the 1-loop (top/stop loops) correction to the Higgs squared-mass parameter in the MSSM, and you'll get something like,
$$\delta m^2_{h_u} = - ...
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1answer
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N=2 SSM without a Higgs
In arXiv:1012.5099, section III, the authors describe a supersymmetric extension to the standard model in which there is no Higgs sector at all, in the conventional sense. The up-type Higgs is a ...
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1answer
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Technical naturalness of Yukawa couplings
Naturalness in the sense of 't Hooft tell us that a small parameter is a signal of a symmetry such that the parameter will be zero when the symmetry is exact. I am puzzled about how this principle is ...
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816 views
Is there an accepted analogy/conceptual aid for the Higgs field?
Is there an accepted analogy / conceptual aid for the Higgs field?
In Physics there are many accepted conceptual aids such as
* Schrödinger's cat
* Maxwell's Demon
* I'm sure I'm missing ...
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What is the need for the Higgs mechanism and electroweak unification?
The Higgs mechanism allows massless fields to acquire mass through their coupling to a scalar field. But if the masses cannot be predicted because the couplings have to be fixed, what really is the ...
