Higgs boson

[Nonson]

FermiNews, Friday, January 23, 1998 (Number 2)
By David Kestenbaum
What Is Electroweak Symmetry Breaking, Anyway?
The Higgs boson is the dangling thread that could unravel the Standard Model, at last revealing what lies beyond it.
At high-energy physics labs, including Fermilab, the search is on for the Higgs boson.
"I drive the sea!" Captain Ahab, peg-legged whale hunter, Moby Dick

"We will find the Higgs.... I promise !" Gordy Kane, theoretical physicist, University of Michigan

It is only once in a long, long while that a discovery causes a complete rewriting of the textbooks. But physicists think that will happen in the coming decade. They are on the verge of uncovering the Higgs boson, a particle heavier perhaps, than any yet observed. Among physicists, its name carries the power of myth and legend. Nobel Prize winner Leon Lederman has also dubbed it "The God Particle." The Higgs is the last undiscovered particle predicted by the Standard Model, the accepted model of much of the universe - the dangling thread in an almost perfect fabric. Give it a tug, physicists say, and the whole Standard Model could unravel.

But what exactly is this particle? That's what everyone wants to know.

What is the Higgs?
The Higgs boson was named after Peter Higgs, a Scottish theorist who, in the early 1960s, was among the first to find it hiding in the equations that would become the Standard Model. Physicists know that the Higgs, or something like it, must exist because otherwise nothing would have any mass. Mass is vital - most obviously because it keeps things still. Without mass, the universe would be a chaotic sea of particles zipping about at the speed of light. Molecules would not hang together. Life would never evolve. Fortunately, protons, neutrons and electrons - the particles that make up everyday atoms, and us - have some heft. That heft lends organization to the universe. It provides planets to live on and allows the sun to shine. Mass buoys life.
The Higgs works its weighty magic through an invisible field that pervades all of space. The field clings, like a kind of cosmic molasses, to all particles. That cling creates drag, and that drag makes particles seem heavy, hard to move. Heaviness is what we call mass. The Standard Model calls for all the carriers of the electroweak force to have the same -- or "symmetric" -- zero mass, in order to allow the unification of the electromagnetic and weak nuclear forces into a single electroweak force. Yet we know that, unlike the massless photon, which carries the electromagnetic force, the W and Z bosons, which carry the weak force, in fact have non-zero masses: the "electroweak symmetry" of boson masses is thus broken. In physicist-speak, the Higgs is the particle that hides the symmetry of the Standard Model, shifting the equations in a crucial way so that the once-massless particles can have mass without throwing else out of the kilter.

Physicists talk about the Higgs as if they knew it intimately, but don't be fooled. "The Higgs" is just a Band-Aid. They know that something else like it has to be there or else the Standard Model goes haywire, but no one knows exactly what form it will take. The Higgs has been called the Holy Grail of particle physics. It has also has been called the rug of ignorance under which the problems of the Standard Model have been swept. One eminent theorist referred to the Higgs as "the toilet of the Standard Model; every house must have one; but no one likes to talk about it."

The Standard Model's breaking point
The Higgs sits at the center of one of the most remarkable accomplishments of physics -- the development of the Standard Model. The Standard Model is a "theory of almost everything." It does not describe gravity, but it covers everything else, from the reactions that fuel the sun to the forces that hold a snowflake together. For the past 25 years, its predictions have matched experimental data, decimal place for decimal place, with amazing precision. The Standard Model has been poked at with everything from small desktop experiments to huge particle accelerators -- some encircling the area of a small city -- and it has yet to break. But break it must.
Physicists look on the Standard Model with a mixture of reverence and frustration. Since they have put it together, they have always known that is incomplete. First, it does not incorporate gravity. Second, and equally bothersome, it raises as many questions as it seems to answer. Why, for instance, are there four forces, and not six, or one? Why are there only the particles that we see, and no more? What accounts for the crazy quilt of masses that particles possess? Deep inside the Standard Model, physicists think, that something is wrong. There must be a larger, more elegant theory, a "theory of everything." And different theories have very different Higgs structures: it's one of the first places they leave their fingerprints. Find the Higgs, or whatever is there, "and it will smash open the Standard Model," says Fermilab theorist Chris Hill.

Imperfect ideas, like old clothes, begin to fray first at the edges. And so it is with the Standard Model: while it perfectly describes most things at earthly energies, without something Higgs-like, its predictions for very high-energy events degenerate into nonsense. For instance, at very high energies like those that particle accelerators will achieve in the next decade, the Standard Model predicts that things happen more than 100 percent of the time. Rationality is restored to the Universe when the Higgs steps in. The Standard Model "blows up just down the road," says Henry Frisch, a University of Chicago physicist working on the CDF experiment at Fermilab. "Something weird is going on, right in our neighborhood." The question is what ?


Hopes for the Higgs, dreams of everything
Take a poll in, say, the Fermilab cafeteria on what exactly the Higgs is, and you could very well start a food fight. The 25-year reign of the Standard Model has given physicists plenty of time to propose successors, and each has its cheerleaders and its critics. Everyone's goal is a "theory of everything", an economical, simple theory that works at all energies, for all time even going back to the searing temperatures of the early universe, when everything was compressed into a single point. With that in hand, physicist could pack it up, and retire to talk about the old days, like faded baseball stars. But opinions differ wildly over what that mother-of-all equations might look like, and they're counting on the Higgs to point the way.

Single Higgs
In the simplest scenario, the Higgs is a single particle. But a single Higgs would be a short-term fix, not a long-term cure for the Standard Model's ills. As Chris Hill puts it, "A single Higgs is just dumb. It doesn't explain anything."
In particular, it doesn't work toward a simpler theory. It doesn't explain for instance, how the four forces we observe in nature (gravity, electromagnetism, weak, and strong nuclear) might somehow be components of a single force. And current data show that the four forces do look more and more alike at very high energies.

"When you see something like that, there's usually a reason for it," says Fermilab theorist Joe Lykken. But this so-called "unification" does not come easily, and requires more than a single Higgs.

Supersymmetry
By far the most popular theory, called supersymmetry, predicts that there is not one Higgs particle, but five. Supersymmetry passes two important tests: (a) it ties the forces together and (b) it stands up at very high energies. Critics contend, however, that supersymmetry makes things uglier, not simpler. In addition to five Higgs, it also requires dozens of new particles, not one of which has yet been seen.

Technicolor
In techinicolor theory, the Higgs is neither one particle nor five particles, but two smaller entities swimming side-by-side. The Higgs doesn't have to be anything mysterious, technicolor advocates say, it could just be two quark-like particles, (such as the recently discovered top quark), bound together with a new fifth force. This theory is elegant but not without its detractors. While techinicolor avoids the ungainly proliferation of particles demanded by supersymmetry, it fails to explain why the forces of nature seem to unify at high energies.

So how do we find the Higgs?
While the Higgs or something like it certainly exists, finding it will not be easy. In fact the way is so murky as to have inspired a book called the "The Higgs Hunter's Guide," a kind of road atlas that describes the many possible incarnations of the Higgs and how to track them down. But physicists are not able to let the Higgs slip through their fingers. Currently, thousands of scientists from all over the globe are engaged in a heroic, systematic search for the Higgs. After years of careful planning and design, they are closing in. Within the decade, someone will ensnare the Higgs. Who bags this prize will depend on its mass.

Different experiments work at different energies. The heavier the Higgs, the higher the energy of the collisions required to produce it, If the Higgs is "light", meaning that its mass is less that of an entire silver atom, it could turn up at the LEP collider at the CERN laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland, probably before 2000. But if the Higgs is slightly heavier, it could instead be discovered here at Fermilab sometime before 2005. And if the Higgs is heavier still, it might not appear until CERN switches on its Large Hadron Collider. which will replace Fermilab's Tevatron as the highest-energy accelerator in the world. The LHC would certainly ferret out the Higgs by 2007. Still, what this collosal, cooperative effort will turn up is anyone's guess. And, for physicists who have waited their whole careers to see what lies behind the Standard Model, it seems almost too good to be true -- even if their own pet theories turn out to be wrong.

"I think we are just coming to grips with it," says Joe Lykken, who has devoted himself to supersymmetry. "Come 2005, I could be in the library tyring to learn about technicolor."

Even better, the Higgs might turn out to be something completely unexpected. "It's hard to imagine that we've missed something," says Boston University theorist Ken Lane, given all the mind-years at work on the problem, "but it would be great."

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David Kestenbaum received his Ph.D. in physics from Harvard University in 1996. he did his thesis research as a member of Fermilab's CDF collaboration. He has recently begun a six-month stint in Washington as a science writer for Science.

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Jan. 27, 1998

[garthnader]

Greetings Nonson.
I too have read up a bit on the Higgs boson.
I found your posting to be very informative and interesting. But I'm wondering about your purpose of putting it on this religion page.
Have you given over to science?
I'm also wondering if you have any experience in quantum reality and physics?
Specifically, the "many worlds" theory and the "observer created reality" theory.
I'd be very interested in your reply.

------------------
"Free your mind and the rest will follow..."
-En Vogue

[Nonson]

Bro. Garthnader, you're coming right up my alley. I and the QT go back a few decades. "many worlds", and the "observer reality theory" is something I've been trying to get across to Ungaro, but he wont buy into it. Also, the post on Higgs boson is for Mr. Ungaro. Who knows. Maybe one day he'll see the light. _____________________________________________ No, I have not given over to science. I just have some idea of when to intoduce it, and when it would be impolite to do so. Now is the proper time to show that the universe of science is due for a mind-shattering Rebirth. Peace

[B_Ungaro]

Greetings Nonson,

Higgs boson, is new frontier. Should it be called GOD'S PARTICLE. I do not think so.
Come back to this place in a few hundred years, and things will be a lot better understood. For now, - we are just finding our way through the fog.

Thank's for your article. The science section of the New York Times had a big spread on this subject a few weeks ago.

Good Luck.

[Nonson]

Bill, you're probably correct in your assumption that things will be achanging. But the time frame is more like twenty years. _____________________________________________ On Higgs Boson, I read a lot of scientific papers and get most of my info there. I never read the suck paper (N. Y. Times). [It is owned and operated by that kind, you know?]

[B_Ungaro]

Greetings Nonson,

You need to learn to judge people as indidviduals. The owners of the NEW YORK TIMES are socially progressive, fair, open minded people. I do not care if they are Jews, Christians, Muslims or what ever. I care only about, what is in their HEART. I wish you could see things that way TOO.

Think about it.

[Nonson]

Hey Bill, it because I know all too well what's in the hearts of these people that I choose to refer to them as that kind. _____________________________________________ Now, Bill, you know mine is a kind and gentle soul topped by a deliciously soft heart. Proof: I have not yet devoured all the Bible toters coming here to peddle their wares. Peace, old one.