Why Is Finding The Higgs essential to the Standard Model?

[boronbrad]

I just cant wrap my head around this search for the higgs boson and for that matter the graviton. It makes absolutely no sense. If mass warps spacetime, then that warping is the cause of the effect we call gravity, right? Why do we need force particles in this instance. Obviously Im just a casual reader but maybe you can explain. As for the Higgs, I understand the idea that we dont understand precisely where mass originates, as Brian Cox says, "what make stuff, stuff?" But again I just have a gut feeling that they arent going to find anything, I read somewhere that the higgs was essential to a complete pic of the standard model, why?

[questionposter]

I just cant wrap my head around this search for the higgs boson and for that matter the graviton. It makes absolutely no sense. If mass warps spacetime, then that warping is the cause of the effect we call gravity, right? Why do we need force particles in this instance. Obviously Im just a casual reader but maybe you can explain. As for the Higgs, I understand the idea that we dont understand precisely where mass originates, as Brian Cox says, "what make stuff, stuff?" But again I just have a gut feeling that they arent going to find anything, I read somewhere that the higgs was essential to a complete pic of the standard model, why?

 

Well there has to be something causing that warp in the fabric of space right? And we also need it to explain why gravity is so much weaker than the other forces especially in the sub-atomic world. It might help with unifying relativity and quantum mechanics.

[timo]

The Higgs boson is not related to the graviton or to gravity at all. It is a particle that is predicted by the Standard Model, namely the only particle predicted by the Standard Model that has not been experimentally verified, yet.

[MigL]

What is missing from the standard model of gravity, GR, is a description of processes at very small distances and other special circumstances. What is needed is a quantum field description of gravity along the same lines as QED and QCD. Any quantum field theory predicts the existence of force carrying bosons to propagate the field.

 

The Higg's mechanism is a theory which models the spontaneous symmetry breaking leading to the separation of the weak and electromagnetic forces at 250 GeV. A scalar field, the Higg's field then permeates all of space, causing a drag on accelerated particles which we associate with inertial mass ( gross oversimplification ). The Higg's field is also a quantum field and has associated force carrying bosons.

 

For the gravity field that predicted boson is the massless, spin 2 graviton.

For the scalar Higg's field, it is the massive ( >250 GeV ) Higg's particle.

Edited August 30, 2011 by MigL