What determines how much mass a particle will have?

[ElasticCollision]

The best description I have on how the Higgs Boson gives particles mass is from a documentary I recently watched.

If higgs bosons were news reporters, and a mass-less particle were president obama, as that particle passed through the Higgs field it would gain mass as reporters (Higgs bosons) crowded around it. While if a particle that was just me passed through the Higgs field, far less reporters would crowd around me. Maybe one or two to ask if I had seen what Obama was doing before we walked into the room of reporters, and so I would gain much less mass.

So my question is, what determines how many reporters (Higgs bosons) will crowd around a particle to give it a specific amount of mass?

[timo]

The number of press reports the particle itself or its role (-> president) received in the past.

[ElasticCollision]

The number of press reports the particle itself or its role (-> president) received in the past.

 

Ok, I was simply using the reporter example to show my grasp on the subject. But with actual particles, what determines how many Higgs bosons will join to them to give them mass? Why don't all elementary particles gain the same amount of mass from the same amount of Higgs bosons?

[derek w]

According to the theory,matter and energy distort space-time,curving it around themselves.

Does the Higgs field replace this theory?

[timo]

There is no "how many Higgs bosons will join" in the real physics. That's only in the reporter analogy. The mass of the particles that owe their mass exclusively to the coupling to the Higgs field is determined by their coupling strength to the Higgs field.

 

You may think that this is a rather pointless statement: It is. But it is the essence of the Higgs Mechanism in the Standard Model of Particle Physics. The Higgs Mechanism is a way/trick/solution to introduce masses for elementary particles without running into too much trouble within the framework itself. The thing about "explaining the origins of mass" is, in my opinion, mostly a marketing issue. Perhaps even just a generous omission of correcting journalists that write this to sell their stories. After the desaster with the SSC, a particle accelerator in the late eighties much larger than today's LHC, the particle physics community realized that they must put much more effort into public relations. Never heard about the SSC? My point, exactly.

[ElasticCollision]

There is no "how many Higgs bosons will join" in the real physics. That's only in the reporter analogy. The mass of the particles that owe their mass exclusively to the coupling to the Higgs field is determined by their coupling strength to the Higgs field.

 

You may think that this is a rather pointless statement: It is. But it is the essence of the Higgs Mechanism in the Standard Model of Particle Physics. The Higgs Mechanism is a way/trick/solution to introduce masses for elementary particles without running into too much trouble within the framework itself. The thing about "explaining the origins of mass" is, in my opinion, mostly a marketing issue. Perhaps even just a generous omission of correcting journalists that write this to sell their stories. After the desaster with the SSC, a particle accelerator in the late eighties much larger than today's LHC, the particle physics community realized that they must put much more effort into public relations. Never heard about the SSC? My point, exactly.

 

I know a small amount about the SSC, actually. I believe it was cancelled due to the building of the ISS at the same time. The government chose to invest in the ISS rather than the SSC.

However I don't see how that has much to do with my question. Of course it is always important to keep public interest in science at its maximum: that is how you gain investment.

To the original point, however, is there any idea as to exactly what gives the particles different amounts of coupling strength to the higgs field?

Let me elaborate a little on why I ask this. If elementary particles such as quarks (which are differentiated simply by the shape of the strings which compose them, according to string theory) are able to gain different amounts of mass simply from different coupling strengths, then this must mean that the strings composing them are not the most basic level, because something else must be influencing the strings to take their different formations and thereby allow quarks to gain different amounts of mass, mustn't it?

[EquisDeXD]

There is no "how many Higgs bosons will join" in the real physics. That's only in the reporter analogy. The mass of the particles that owe their mass exclusively to the coupling to the Higgs field is determined by their coupling strength to the Higgs field.

 

So what determines the strength of the Higg's field?

[MigL]

As Timo has stated it is the coupling strength of the particle to the Higgs field, ie. how strongly the particle interacts with the scalar Higgs field, which supposedly determines the mass of the particle. Not the strength of the Higgs field, which would have a constant value.

Different quarks, if the superstring representation is valid, would have differing vibrational harmonics which would affect their coupling strength to give different masses for the quarks. Again, assuming the validity of superstring theory.

There is also a Machian theory of mass which is due to the local, causal distribution of mass-energy, as I don't think the Higgs boson has been 100% identified yet. And since scalar fields can couple with gravity, the cause of mass could even be a combination of Higgs and Mach mechanisms.

Edited October 5, 2012 by MigL

[timo]

So what determines the strength of the Higg's field?

I don't know what determines this strength. In the Standard Model, there is no explanation for it - the couplings are among the model's free parameters. There are certainly approaches that will tell you they give the explanation, but most of them will be extra layers on top of the SM that come with yet some other free parameters.

 

If you take the perspective that physics is supposed to quantitatively describe the world then it is not obvious that inventing a layer above "the couplings have these values - end of story" even is an improvement. From my childhood times I know that at least in communication you can always add another "and why is that?" to the last answer. And at some point it stops adding to the conversation. I can imagine science being similar.

Edited October 5, 2012 by timo

[ElasticCollision]

I don't know what determines this strength. In the Standard Model, there is no explanation for it - the couplings are among the model's free parameters. There are certainly approaches that will tell you they give the explanation, but most of them will be extra layers on top of the SM that come with yet some other free parameters.

 

If you take the perspective that physics is supposed to quantitatively describe the world then it is not obvious that inventing a layer above "the couplings have these values - end of story" even is an improvement. From my childhood times I know that at least in communication you can always add another "and why is that?" to the last answer. And at some point it stops adding to the conversation. I can imagine science being similar.

 

That's a bit disappointing. I was rather hoping that as the Higgs boson theory answers the question as to how particles gain mass so well, they would have theorized exactly how different particles gain different amounts of mass, beyond an idea that elementary particles just have different coupling strengths to the Higgs field intrinsically, without any real explanation to the differences in coupling strengths.

It makes me lose a bit of faith in the theory, I have to say.

[MigL]

If the Higgs mechanism gives mass to formerly massless particles through their coupling with the Higgs field, then what mechanism imparts mass to the Higgs boson ?

 

The Higgs boson is an 'excitation' of the scalar Higgs field and unless scalar fields are self-coupling ( I'm not sure myself ), there needs to be another, separate mechanism for the Higgs boson's mass. It seems kind of strange that nature would use one mechanism for all particle masses and then tack on another separate mechanism for the bosonic manifestation of the first mechanism.

 

See the following arXiv paper...

"What is the Origin of the Mass of the Higgs Boson?" - by Novello and Bittencourt

for an elaborate explanation of the Higgs mechanism as opposed to the Machian, metric tensor mechanism for particle masses.

Edited October 6, 2012 by MigL

[Ronald Hyde]

To me the whole notion that one particle gives the other particles mass is an oxymoron, and has been for some thirty years. You can really only say

that 'there exists certain relations among the particle masses', since particle mass relations are dimensionless ratios. You might be able to link the

particle masses to some other dimensional quantity, like a natural unit of time and say that that quantity sets the scale of mass relations. People

used to try to link the Electron mass to its charge, but charge is a scale invariant quantity and mass is a scale quantity, so it's patently obvious that

that is a no-go proposition.

 

The whole notion isn't well thought out.

[timo]

If the Higgs mechanism gives mass to formerly massless particles through their coupling with the Higgs field, then what mechanism imparts mass to the Higgs boson? The Higgs boson is an 'excitation' of the scalar Higgs field and unless scalar fields are self-coupling ( I'm not sure myself ), there needs to be another, separate mechanism for the Higgs boson's mass

The Higgs Boson indeed aquires its mass from the self-coupling of the Higgs field.

[MigL]

I wasn't aware that that coud happen. Thanks Timo.

[ElasticCollision]

As Timo has stated it is the coupling strength of the particle to the Higgs field, ie. how strongly the particle interacts with the scalar Higgs field, which supposedly determines the mass of the particle. Not the strength of the Higgs field, which would have a constant value.

Different quarks, if the superstring representation is valid, would have differing vibrational harmonics which would affect their coupling strength to give different masses for the quarks. Again, assuming the validity of superstring theory.

There is also a Machian theory of mass which is due to the local, causal distribution of mass-energy, as I don't think the Higgs boson has been 100% identified yet. And since scalar fields can couple with gravity, the cause of mass could even be a combination of Higgs and Mach mechanisms.

 

Is there some sort of theory as to how the strings get these different vibrational harmonics though?

 

To me the whole notion that one particle gives the other particles mass is an oxymoron, and has been for some thirty years. You can really only say

that 'there exists certain relations among the particle masses', since particle mass relations are dimensionless ratios. You might be able to link the

particle masses to some other dimensional quantity, like a natural unit of time and say that that quantity sets the scale of mass relations. People

used to try to link the Electron mass to its charge, but charge is a scale invariant quantity and mass is a scale quantity, so it's patently obvious that

that is a no-go proposition.

 

The whole notion isn't well thought out.

 

I thought the Higgs boson was massless. My understanding of it was that quarks and Higgs boson are both massless, and their combination "creates" mass.

Edited October 11, 2012 by ElasticCollision

[O'Nero Samuel]

Is the formation of mass as a result of the combination of quarks and higgs boson? I thought one can not isolate these fundamental particles- quarks?

[MigL]

IIn the higher symmetry state, before spontaneous symmetry breaking, all particles are massless. It is through the coupling of these massless particles to the Higgs field, that they aquire mass. Not just quarks, but all fermions like electrons and their relatives, and massive evctor bosons like the +/-W and Z.