Simple language: the Higgs boson - what is it?

In simple terms, the Higgs boson – this is the most expensive particle for all time. If the discovery of the electron, for example, was enough of a vacuum tube and a pair of brilliant minds, search for the Higgs boson required the creation of experimental energy that is rarely seen on Earth. The large hadron Collider needs no introduction, being one of the most famous and successful scientific experiments, but its core particle, as before, shrouded in mystery for most of the population. She was named the God particle, however, thanks to the efforts of literally thousands of scientists, we should no longer take its existence on faith.

Jane DOE

What is the Higgs boson, and the importance of his discovery? Why it became the subject of so much hype, funding and misinformation? For two reasons. First, it was the last undiscovered particle required to confirm the Standard model of physics. Its opening meant that a whole generation of scientific publications was not in vain. Second, this boson gives other particles their mass, what gives it special significance and a “magic”. We tend to think of mass as an internal property of things, but physicists believe otherwise. In simple terms, the Higgs boson-a particle without mass which fundamentally does not exist.

Another field

The reason lies in the so-called Higgs field. It was described even before the Higgs boson, because its physics calculated for the needs of their own theories and observations, which required the availability of a new field, the effect of which would extend to the entire Universe. Reinforcement hypotheses by the invention of new components of the Universe dangerous. In the past, for example, this has led to the creation of the theory of the ether. But the more he made mathematical calculations, the more physicists realized that the Higgs field must exist in reality. The only problem was the lack of practical possibilities of its observation.

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In the Standard model of elementary particles acquire mass through the mechanism based on the existence of the Higgs field penetrating the entire space. It creates Higgs bosons, which requires large amounts of energy, and this is the main reason why scientists need advanced particle accelerators for carrying out high-energy experiments.

Origin of mass?

Strength of the weak nuclear interactions with increasing distance decreases rapidly. According to quantum field theory, this means that the particles that are involved in its creation – W - and Z bosons, – must have mass, unlike gluons and photons, which have mass.

The Problem is that the gauge theory operate only massless elements. If the gauge bosons have mass, such a hypothesis cannot be reasonably determined. The Higgs mechanism avoids this problem by introducing a new field called the Higgs field. At high energies the gauge bosons do not have mass, and the hypothesis is working as expected. At low energies field causes symmetry breaking, which allows the items to have mass.

What is the Higgs boson?

The Higgs Field gives rise to particles called Higgs bosons. Theory mass is not defined, but in the experiment it was determined that it is equal to 125 GeV. In simple terms, the Higgs boson, its existence finally confirmed the Standard model.

Mechanism, field and boson are named after Scottish scientist Peter Higgs. Although he was not the first who proposed these concepts, and, as often happens in physics, just happened to be those after whom they were named.

Symmetry breaking

It was thought that the Higgs field is responsible for the fact that particles have mass is not supposed, it had. It is a universal medium that gives particles mass different masses. This symmetry violation to explain, by analogy with the light-all wavelengths move in vacuum with the same velocity in the prism, each wavelength can be selected. This, of course, incorrect analogy, since white light contains all wavelengths, but the example shows how is to create the Higgs field mass due to symmetry breaking. The prism breaks the symmetry of the speed of different wavelengths of light, separating them, and the Higgs field is believed to break the symmetry of the masses of some particles, which otherwise massless symmetrical.

How to explain in simple language the Higgs boson? Only recently, physicists realized that if the Higgs field really exists, it will require appropriate media with properties that can be observed. It was assumed that this piece belonged to the bosons. Higgs boson in plain language – the so-called force carrier, like photons, which are carriers of the electromagnetic field of the Universe. Photons, in a sense, are local excitations in the same way as the Higgs boson is a local excitation of its fields. The proof of the existence of a particle with the expected properties physicists were in fact equivalent to the direct proof of the existence of the field.

Experiment

Many years of planning allowed the Large hadron Collider (LHC) to become the appropriate expertise to potential refutation of the theory of the Higgs boson. 27-km ring heavy duty magnets can accelerate charged particles to significant fractions of the speed of light, causing a collision of sufficient force to divide them into components, as well as deforming the space around the point of impact. According to calculations, when the collision energy is high enough level you can charge a boson so that it will disintegrate and it will be visible. This energy was so great that some even panicked and predicted the end of the world,and the imagination of other dispersed so that the detection of the Higgs boson was described as a glimpse into an alternate dimension.

Final confirmation

Initial observations seemed to actually refute predictions, and no signs of particles could not be found. Some researchers who participated in the campaign for the expenditure of billions of dollars, even appeared on television and humbly stated the fact that the refutation of scientific theories is as important as its confirmation. After some time, however, the dimensions started to emerge in the big picture, and on 14 March 2013, CERN officially announced the confirmation of the existence of the particle. There is reason to assume the existence of multiple bosons, but this idea needs further investigation.

Two years after CERN announced the discovery of particles, scientists working at the Large hadron Collider were able to confirm it. On the one hand, it was a great victory of science, and on the other, many scientists were disappointed. If anyone had hoped that the Higgs boson would be the particle which will lead to strange regions beyond the Standard model-supersymmetry, dark matter, dark energy, – that, unfortunately, it was not so.

The Study, published in Nature Physics, confirmed the collapse of the fermions. The standard model predicts that, in simple terms, the Higgs boson is the particle that gives the fermions their mass. The Collider CMS detector has finally confirmed their decay into fermions-bottom quarks and Tau-leptons.

The Higgs Boson in simple language: what is it?

This study has finally confirmed that it is the Higgs boson predicted by the Standard model of particle physics. It is located in the region of the mass-energy of 125 GeV, has no spin, and can decay into many lighter elements – pairs of photons, fermions, etc. because of this we can confidently say that the Higgs boson, in simple language speaking, is a particle that gives mass to everything.

Disappointing standard behavior of newly discovered element. If its breaking up a little different, he would have been associated with fermions differently, and there would be new areas of research. On the other hand, this means that we on a step have not progressed beyond the Standard model that does not account for gravity, dark energy, dark matter and other freaky phenomena of reality.

Now we can only guess about what they are called. The most popular theory of supersymmetry, which States that every particle of the Standard model has an incredibly heavy superpartner (thus making up 23 % of the Universe-dark matter). The upgrade of the Collider with the doubling of its collision energy to 13 TeV, are likely to detect these supertastic. Otherwise supersymmetry will have to wait to build a more powerful successor to the LHC.

Future prospects

So what will physics after the Higgs boson? The LHC recently resumed its work with things...