1
vote
1answer
73 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 ...
3
votes
1answer
165 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?
1
vote
1answer
116 views

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 ...
2
votes
0answers
113 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
279 views

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 ...
0
votes
1answer
260 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
222 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 ...
4
votes
0answers
109 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
116 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
216 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 ...
3
votes
3answers
256 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. ...
0
votes
1answer
152 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 ...
10
votes
1answer
57 views

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 ...
10
votes
1answer
187 views

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 ...
13
votes
4answers
911 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 ...