Table of Contents
Where does the Higgs boson get its mass?
the Higgs field
The Higgs boson gets its mass just like other particles—from its own interactions with the Higgs field. There may be more than one Higgs boson. One theoretical model of new physics predicts five Higgs bosons. Fundamental particles in our universe acquire mass through their interactions with the Higgs field.
How does the Higgs boson give mass to particles?
The Higgs boson does not technically give other particles mass. More precisely, the particle is a quantized manifestation of a field (the Higgs field) that generates mass through its interaction with other particles. These fields can be divided into matter fields (whose particles are electrons, quarks, etc.)
How are Higgs bosons created?
When two protons collide within the LHC, it is their constituent quarks and gluons that interact with one another. These high-energy interactions can, through well-predicted quantum effects, produce a Higgs boson, which would immediately transform – or “decay” – into lighter particles that ATLAS and CMS could observe.
Why do particles interact with the Higgs field?
It turned out that as other particles of matter, such as electrons, move through the Higgs field, they interact with the Higgs bosons, which cling to or cluster around the matter particles, and give them their mass. The more Higgs boson particles that interact with the other particle, the more mass it attains.
What is mass Higgs boson?
CMS physicists recently measured the mass of the Higgs boson to be 125.35 GeV with a precision of 0.15 GeV, an uncertainty of roughly 0.1\%!
Why does the Higgs boson have so much mass?
What’s more, the Higgs field can even interact with its own excitations, which is to say it can give mass to the Higgs boson, too. Actually, the Higgs field likes to interact with itself so much more than with the lowly electrons and protons that make us up that the Higgs boson has a great deal more mass. But we shouldn’t complain.
What is the Higgs particle?
[ Are There Higgs Bosons in Space?] But here’s where the Higgs particle comes in: Just as the photon mediates interactions with the EM field and is itself an excitation of the EM field, the Higgs particle mediates interactions with the Higgs field, and is itself an excitation of the Higgs field.
How is the Higgs field created?
The Higgs field can be thought of as a giant field of energy, with the Higgs Bosons being excitations in that field. This field interacts with particles to give them mass, and this is similar to how the Higgs Boson is ‘created’. When a particle causes lots of fluctuations in the Higgs field, it can be thought to be ‘interacting’ with it.
What gives particles mass?
The Higgs field gives mass to fundamental particles—the electrons, quarks and other building blocks that cannot be broken into smaller parts. But these still only account for a tiny proportion of the universe’s mass. The rest comes from protons and neutrons, which get almost all their mass from the strong nuclear force.