[shizz]

Hey guys,

Just something that has been bugging me while thinking about the Higgs Boson.
I understand how we can produce say quarks by smashing protons into each other, as they are made up of them, but I'm having trouble understanding how we need to smash them together at high energy to produce a Higgs Boson.

How can we say something exists and permeates the universe interacting with all the other particles giving them mass, when in order to make it exist for a billionth of a second (or presumably shorter) we have to do such an experiment?

Why doesn't it always exist? Why isn't it easier to obtain since its supposedly everywhere?

Obviously I'm not up to scratch on this stuff at all, and I've a feeling its to do with the term Boson, but a quick google leads me to see that other Bosons are easier to obtain than this?

I'm probably asking a lot from someone to try explain this but I guess my main problem is how we can say it exists when to make it exist we have to do these experiments?

[citrus burst]

Originally Posted by shizz

Hey guys,

Just something that has been bugging me while thinking about the Higgs Boson.
I understand how we can produce say quarks by smashing protons into each other, as they are made up of them, but I'm having trouble understanding how we need to smash them together at high energy to produce a Higgs Boson.

Don't really know where to begin with, but I'll try to address everything. So I'll start with the mass of the Higgs boson. From today's announcement its around 125 GeV, this might mean nothing to you but its pretty big when compared to other elementary particles. Its over 100 times more massive then a proton.

In order to generate particles with such large masses, they must be given a huge amount of energy. This on its own won't do anything to the particle just make it move really fast. That's why they collide them. This will cause them to break apart into other particles, depending on a couple of factors. Once the new particles are created, they will interact with each other creating other new particles, among others things when the conditions are right the Higgs boson.

That's the easy part. The hard part is how to detect them. The Higgs boson, due to its large mass, isn't very stable. I don't know its decay rate. However when it does decay, it will always decay the same way, into other particles that can be detected.

Using all this you can piece together if a particle is there, using a few techniques.

Another problem, was the standard model doesn't actually predict a mass for the Higgs boson. If it did, this whole thing would have been solved decades ago.

Originally Posted by shizz

How can we say something exists and permeates the universe interacting with all the other particles giving them mass, when in order to make it exist for a billionth of a second (or presumably shorter) we have to do such an experiment?

See the thing is the Higgs boson itself isn't really that important. The Higgs mechanism is where its all at. This is what actually "gives" the mass to other
particles. By discovering the boson, we can now say how the mechanism works.

Originally Posted by shizz

Why doesn't it always exist? Why isn't it easier to obtain since its supposedly everywhere?

It does always exist, we just didn't know where.
Now that we are pretty sure of the mass of the particle, it will become much easier to create and experiment on.

Originally Posted by shizz

Obviously I'm not up to scratch on this stuff at all, and I've a feeling its to do with the term Boson, but a quick google leads me to see that other Bosons are easier to obtain than this?

The term boson doesn't really have anything to do with it. A boson is a type of particle, due to properties it has; integer spin etc. A way of thinking about it is the way biologists categorize animals; mammals, birds, reptiles. All animals in these types have things in common that allow them to be categorized.

I hope this helps

[shizz]

Originally Posted by citrus burst

In order to generate particles with such large masses, they must be given a huge amount of energy. This on its own won't do anything to the particle just make it move really fast. That's why they collide them. This will cause them to break apart into other particles, depending on a couple of factors. Once the new particles are created, they will interact with each other creating other new particles, among others things when the conditions are right the Higgs boson.

Thanks man. I guess this is the part I'm having trouble understanding. Why do we have to generate particles? If this much energy needs to be used to generate one, how does it exist elsewhere?

[mooliki]

Originally Posted by shizz

Thanks man. I guess this is the part I'm having trouble understanding. Why do we have to generate particles? If this much energy needs to be used to generate one, how does it exist elsewhere?

I think I know what you mean. As far as I can understand (correct me if I'm wrong), they're essentially looking for the Higgs field, which is, theoretically comprised of Higgs boson. To prove this, you have to isolate the Higgs boson, which in this case requires producing it in the huge amounts of energy from particle collisions like in CERN.

If you think of photons, they're everywhere, forming our visual spectrum, but you require experiments to isolate and study individual protons. Or, to put it another way, it's like you can be standing with an ocean right in front of you, but it's only when someone discovers the H2O molecule that you can say what exactly the water is. The higgs boson just happens to be a particularly elusive particle.

Again, that's only my understanding of it, and I may be very wrong!

[shizz]

Originally Posted by mooliki

I think I know what you mean. As far as I can understand (correct me if I'm wrong), they're essentially looking for the Higgs field, which is, theoretically comprised of Higgs boson. To prove this, you have to isolate the Higgs boson, which in this case requires producing it in the huge amounts of energy from particle collisions like in CERN.

If you think of photons, they're everywhere, forming our visual spectrum, but you require experiments to isolate and study individual protons. Or, to put it another way, it's like you can be standing with an ocean right in front of you, but it's only when someone discovers the H2O molecule that you can say what exactly the water is. The higgs boson just happens to be a particularly elusive particle.

Again, that's only my understanding of it, and I may be very wrong!

Yeah I think I get what you are saying. But if that was the case would it not be sort of knocking a higgs boson out of the higgs field to measure it rather than "generating" one as it is often spoke about?

[Aristotle]

As has been said, Higgs bosons are excitations of the Higgs field, just like photons are excitations of the electromagnetic field. Photons are created due to particle interactions, annihaltions etc., as is also the case for the Higgs boson. That is in order to "make" the energy needed to disturb the Higgs field, it has to come form somewhere, e.g. proton annihilations. And because the mass of the Higgs boson is so much greater than then 2 stationary protons, we need energies such that 2*(proton rest energy + kinetic energy) > Higgs mass.

Also to note, it is the Higgs field rather than the boson that permeates space. And we know that the boson has such a short lifetime because it is very interactive, and we know this because a lot of stuff interacts with it thus giving this stuff mass! Also, bosons having a short lifetime is nothing strange!

[Morbert]

Originally Posted by shizz

Yeah I think I get what you are saying. But if that was the case would it not be sort of knocking a higgs boson out of the higgs field to measure it rather than "generating" one as it is often spoke about?

To echo Aristotle: A Higgs boson is a quantised excitation of the Higgs field. Just as a photon is the quantised excitation of the electromagnetic field. So even at low energies, a Higgs field exists even if the boson excitations do not. But to directly detect the presence of the Higgs field, scientists have to look for the excitations of the Higgs field, which requires high-energies.

Think of a swimming pool. When you add energy to the water, ripples form. If no energy is added, there are no ripples, but the pool still exists. Scientists are trying to verify the pool exists by adding energy to it and detecting the ripples.

[Zombrex]

I think shizz is asking if the Higgs field is every where why are higgs bosons not every where, why do we need to make them. Why can't we just point an electron microscope or some other detector at something, anything, and see billions of higgs bosons flying around, like you could with normal matter, say an electron. Why do we need to create them through LRC collisions.

I'm just guessing but I imagine the answer is because they don't simply exist as Higgs bosons floating around in space, that they hidden behind levels of ordinary particles and it is only when you strip out everything else can you get down to the level where you can detect them individually from the soup of other particles.

Close? Completely wrong?

[Aristotle]

It's primarily because of their short lifespan. They're more of an intermediate state than a final state if you like.

In fact, when the protons collide and a Higgs boson is created, it has already decayed before it can reach the detectors.

[Zombrex]

Originally Posted by Aristotle

It's primarily because of their short lifespan. They're more of an intermediate state than a final state if you like.

In fact, when the protons collide and a Higgs boson is created, it has already decayed before it can reach the detectors.

This is the puzzling bit for me. So do Higgs bosons exist naturally? My understanding was that it was particles interacting with Higgs bosons that caused mass? Surely that would mean the universe is full of Higgs constantly banging into particles?

Apologies if that is a stupid question

[Morbert]

Originally Posted by Zombrex

This is the puzzling bit for me. So do Higgs bosons exist naturally? My understanding was that it was particles interacting with Higgs bosons that caused mass? Surely that would mean the universe is full of H
iggs constantly banging into particles?

Apologies if that is a stupid question

You're thinking of virtual particles. The electromagnetic force for example is not carried by real photons but by virtual photons which are transient unobservable excitations of the electromagnetic field that dont satisfy certain relations.

I.e It is the Higgs field that interacts with particles not the Higgs boson. And the Higgs field is not made of Higgs bosons just as water in a pool is not made of ripples.

[Zombrex]

Originally Posted by Morbert

You're thinking of virtual particles. The electromagnetic force for example is not carried by real photons but by virtual photons which are transient unobservable excitations of the electromagnetic field that dont satisfy certain relations.

I.e It is the Higgs field that interacts with particles not the Higgs boson. And the Higgs field is not made of Higgs bosons just as water in a pool is not made of ripples.

Cool, ok I think I got it. A higgs boson is really just a excited area of the higgs field, and that requires a lot of energy it is not something that just is happening naturally.

[shizz]

Thanks guys. I think I get the analogies but I was always under the assumption that photons were actual particles? Or is it that it doesn't take much energy to excite the electromagnetic field and create photons?

[Morbert]

Originally Posted by shizz

Or is it that it doesn't take much energy to excite the electromagnetic field and create photons?

Bingo. Photons are very easy to produce. You do it every time you switch on a light.

[shizz]

Originally Posted by Morbert

Bingo. Photons are very easy to produce. You do it every time you switch on a light.

I wrote out a good bit there but I think it clicked with me mid way.

Is the electromagnetic field in this case considered to be the force holding the atoms in the filament together? We impart energy to it which in turn creates photons? So we're saying the Higgs field is a force which permeates all of space, interacting with matter giving it mass. When we excite this field enough it produces a Higgs boson?