Higgs Boson

Have you ever wondered how matter is formed? Is there an omnipotent entity that creates all the matter in the universe?

To answer this question, theoretical physicists had developed a hypothetical particle that creates a field where the matter gets mass. Later it was named the Higgs Boson. It is also nicknamed the ‘god particle’.

The universe is a sophisticated interplay of elementary particles through fundamental forces at the quantum level. During the 1960s, theoretical physicists were in the pursuit of developing a quantum field theory. Here, both force carriers and matter particles are the materialisations of the elementary quantum fields. The standard model has the complete picture of every known fermion and bosons.

The Higgs boson is an indispensable entity in particle physics that acts as a fundamental binding factor in the quantum realm.

What is a Higgs Boson?

The Higgs boson is the elementary particle linked with the Higgs field. It is a field that imparts mass to other subatomic particles, such as quarks and electrons. In other words, it is the boson or carrier particle of the Higgs field which fills the space and equips all the elementary particles with mass through its interplay with them. The Higgs particle is a scalar boson with positive parity, no electric charge, no colour charge and zero spins. It is very unstable, and perhaps it decays into other elementary particles instantly.

The Higgs boson and Higgs field are named after the theoretical physicist Peter Higgs. He is one of the physicists who introduced the basic concept of the Higgs field. Interestingly, science enthusiasts call it the God particle.

Higgs Field

The Higgs field is an energy field that is believed to be present in every area of the known universe. The field co-occurs with an elementary particle called the Higgs boson. The field constantly interacts with other fundamental particles like electrons, quarks, etc. In simple words, when indivisible particles interact with this field, they gain mass.

The Higgs field does not create mass. If that is the case, it violates the laws of conservation (matter or energy cannot be created or destroyed). In reality, mass is gained by the particles through the interaction of the Higgs field with the Higgs boson. The Higgs boson has a relative mass in the form of energy. When a massless particle interacts with the field, the particle will slow down as the particle’s mass will increase exponentially. If there is no Higgs field, particles will not have any mass and will float effortlessly at light speed.

The Higgs field is a scalar quantity, with two electrically charged and two neutral components that make a sophisticated doublet of weak isospin symmetry. Its potential has nonzero reading everywhere, which shatters the weak isospin symmetry of the electro-weak interaction, and through the Higgs field, some particles gain mass. In technical terms, the Higgs mechanism uses bosons to acquire rest mass without directly disrupting gauge invariance.

Higgs field was zero immediately after the big bang. As the universe’s temperature dropped below a threshold value, the Higgs field grew instantaneously. Elementary particles started to gain mass by interacting with this field. The more a fundamental particle reacts with the field, the heavier it will become.

A video about particles in waves

Discovery of Higgs Boson

Since the 1960s, physicists have searched for the elusive ‘god particle’. The Higgs boson is extremely unstable and decays instantaneously. Therefore, it wasn’t easy to detect or observe it. Particle accelerators in CERN have been conducting continuous experiments to find the particle. After 40 years of search, on 4 July 2012, an elementary particle with the exact characteristics (Higgs boson) was discovered by CMS and ATLAS experiments at LHC (Large Hadron Collider).

Scientists have observed the new particle in the region in the vicinity of 125 GeV.

The detected particle was consistent with the properties of the theoretical Higgs boson. However, further extensive studies have to be done to determine whether the particle is exactly the Higgs particle forecasted by the Standard Model.

In 2013, Peter Higgs and François Englert were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for the theoretical discovery of an identical mechanism related to the Higgs field. They developed a theoretical framework of ‘how particles get their mass?’. Observational results of the LHC confirmed their prediction.

Higgs Boson Facts

• The Higgs boson also gets its mass from the reaction with the Higgs field.
• There might be many types of Higgs boson. A theoretical model predicts about five active Higgs bosons.
• Elementary particles acquire mass by interacting with the Higgs field.
• The Higgs boson could be an exotic portal for finding solid proofs of dark matter.

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