Tagged Questions

5
votes
2answers
240 views

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 ...
5
votes
1answer
143 views

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 ...
8
votes
1answer
157 views

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 ...
3
votes
1answer
93 views

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 ...
7
votes
1answer
374 views

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 ...
2
votes
1answer
130 views

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 ...
3
votes
0answers
66 views

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. ...
4
votes
2answers
149 views

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 ...
0
votes
1answer
261 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 ...
5
votes
3answers
223 views

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 ...
1
vote
2answers
129 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 ...
3
votes
2answers
413 views

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 ...
7
votes
2answers
1k views

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 ...
9
votes
2answers
3k views

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 ...
9
votes
4answers
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 ...