Alright, I read a book on particle physics and it says that mass is created by interaction between Higgs Bosons and other particles. However the Higgs has mass itself. To me that means that means it would require another Higgs to give it mass which wold require another one to give it mass on to infinity. That can't be true because the universe dosen't have infinite mass. The Higgs has never been detected but most unification theories require that it does. Can the higgs create its own mass? If anyone has any ideas please help the book wasnt clear enough on this point and im going insane. :eek:

As I understand it (and I'm not an expert), particles don't have mass per se; they have mass conferred on them by interacting with the Higgs. So the Higgs boson has mass of its own; other particles don't, except through interaction with the Higgs.
Does that make sense?

Particles get their masses from interacting with the Higgs field which is an undetectable field that fills the universe. The Higgs boson is the particle that 'clings' to objects as they move through the Higgs field which causes a 'drag' that shows up as mass. The Higgs boson acquires its mass (or inertial or resistance to change in motion) from 'borrowed' energy. This energy is 'paid back' almost immediately.

What Q said.

Seems they are having a bit of trouble finding the Higgs.

And, I cannot attatch my paper on the subject. Damn.

Relevent portion:


It's unfortunate that few of our models predict a mass for the Higgs. But we do have a few guides, it weighs more than 60 GeV and probably weighs** less than 1 TeV. If it is fairly light (less than 130 GeV) we should find traces of it soon. If it's heavier than 130 GeV, experiments at the LHC are our best bet, and higher-energy electron-positron colliders would be important. The supersymmetry model of particle interactions predicts that the Higgs mass should be less than about 150 GeV. Unfortunately, we've yet to detect it at that mass. It seems to be more massive. Fermilab could probe for a Higgs mass up to 130 GeV by the year 2002; and the Large Hadron Collider at CERN could extend the range up to 150 GeV by 2010.
Recent studies using Cern's particle accelerator that should have turned up evidence of the Higgs failed to find any traces of it. Does this mean that the Higgs boson dosen't exist? Not necessarily, because the Higgs boson may exist at higher energies than have been explored so far. Recent evidence suggests that this may be the case. If this is the problem, the Fermilab accelerator is the best hope so far. In 2007, a new particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider, should resolve this dispute.
**Although we are speaking of mass, not weight.

Me old mate. I hate to say this but the Higgs Field sounds a lot like an Ether to me. Before you say cite?, I can't, it's a gut instinct.

Thed

Yes it does seem to act like an ether. Are we back at square one?

I see a few differences tho:

The ether (aether) was considered a medium necessary for the propagation of light. Light propagates through vacuum.

The ether was considered to be the 'universal inertial frame of reference' to which all other frames were related. The Higgs has what's termed 'vacuum expectation value'; it permeates space which might make it impossible to find a local inertial frame.

Mass is produced by the static interaction of other fields with the Higgs field as opposed to the motion of particles through space as might be expected from an 'ether drag.'

Am I way off the mark here?

Q,

Alright, if i understand this right the Higgs gets its own mass by borrowing it from the vaccum but wouldnt that make the Higgs highly unstable so it wouldn't last long enough to create mass for stable particles? Or is the Higgs field independent from the particle? Sounds like it would have to be.

Not from the vaccum but from the particles themselves. The Higgs feild rather 'sticks' to these particles....as Q said.

And according to the standard model, every particle has an accompanying field, and vice versa. We cannot observe the Higgs feild directly, but we can (we hope) observe the Higgs boson, so then we could infer the presence of the Higgs feild. They are, I suppose, two sides of the same coin. The Higgs boson creates the Higgs field.

Xev,

I know how the other particles get their mass what i dont know is how the Higgs boson gets its own mass? If the higgs boson creates the higgs field and the field gives mass to the boson isn't that a violation of conservation laws?

I'm sorry, I don't see how it would violate energy conservation...:confused:

Then again, I have the mental capacity of a stoned wallabie.

Neutrino

The Higgs boson has no intrinsic spin nor electrical charge, and unlike other bosons does not mediate force.

What law of conservation are you referring?

Sorry about that last post an evil fiend hacked my account and posted it im my name. The offender has had his eyes gouged out and bamboo shoots shoved under his toenails.

Or if im honest i wrote that post without thinking at all. Right now I'M not even sure what i was trying to say. I was probaly thinking that the higgs boson required mass to create the higgs field which it dosen't right? I'm still not sure what i ment by law of conservtion but im sure it made sense at the time.

Originally posted by (Q)
Thed

Yes it does seem to act like an ether. Are we back at square one?

Nope. Not at all


I see a few differences tho:

The ether (aether) was considered a medium necessary for the propagation of light. Light propagates through vacuum.

The ether was considered to be the 'universal inertial frame of reference' to which all other frames were related. The Higgs has what's termed 'vacuum expectation value'; it permeates space which might make it impossible to find a local inertial frame.

Plus it needed zero density and infinite elasticity. A paradox.


Mass is produced by the static interaction of other fields with the Higgs field as opposed to the motion of particles through space as might be expected from an 'ether drag.'

Am I way off the mark here?

Not at all. IIRC a Higgs scalar field was used to correctly model the W and Z vector bosons. This lends it some credence.

But hey, this scalar field has some wierd properties. Perhaps if I get time I'll do some real reserch into it rather than hand waving.