4
votes
1answer
128 views

What if EM or QCD was spontaneously broken?

Suppose that Standard Model Higgs mechanism broke electromagnetism, by e.g. veving the charged component of the doublet, so that the photon was massive with $m_\gamma\sim v$. Could such a Universe ...
2
votes
0answers
129 views

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 ...
2
votes
1answer
82 views

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 ...
2
votes
0answers
120 views

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 ...
3
votes
1answer
267 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 ...
3
votes
1answer
94 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 ...
0
votes
1answer
270 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 ...
3
votes
3answers
149 views

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 ...
4
votes
0answers
117 views

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 ...
1
vote
1answer
121 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 ...
2
votes
1answer
220 views

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 ...
0
votes
1answer
158 views

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 ...
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 ...
3
votes
1answer
78 views

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} = - ...
13
votes
4answers
918 views

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 ...