Proof

[MigL]

The LHC has found an energrtic particle which fits the description of the Higg's boson very well, but is this actual proof ot the spontaneous symmetry break/Higg's mechanism/electroweak separation ?

 

Let's grab an electron ( we obviously cannot grab a single quark ), put it in a briefcase, take it to Switzerland and drop it in the LHC. We now accelerate this electron to approx. 250GeV ( I don't know if its even possible using the LHC ). What do we expect to happen ?

 

At this energy, any and all non-zero valued Higg's fields ( depending on the model ) should appear to the electron as all zero valued and completely symmetric and the weak vacuum charge should cease weakly interacting with the electron. In effect, the electron will become a massless particle whose energy is solely dependant on its momentum.

 

We would expect an immediate jump to lightspeed as all massless particles move at c. And if we were to use one of the shorter lived, but heavier ( again, don't know if possible with LHC ) electron families, we expect to see its lifetime extended indefinitely.

 

Any idea if any experiment like this is planned ?

[imatfaal]

I thought the Higg's field was used to directly explain the generation of mass for only the massive bosons - W+ W- and Z. I wasn't aware that the fermions were quite so simply effected. I did read about yukawa coupling between the fermionic field and the higgs field - but I didn't think it was agreed or certain to any extent

[MigL]

Spontaneous symmetry breaking and the Higg's mechanism ( field ) give mass to not only the weak gauge bosons, but also quarks and leptons.

As a matter of fact, it is the only theory which explains the short separation/hi energy and large separation/lo energy behaviour of the standard model that doesn't run into short separation/ hi energy nonsense ( like infinities, probabilities higher than 1 or things happening more often than always ). It acheives this by not having a longitudinal polarization to massless particles ( lo sep/ hi energy ), only the two perpendicular polarizations. Upon symmetry breaking, all three polarizations are allowed and mass is induced ( lrg sep/ lo energy ).

 

I guess it wins by default.