The Higgs boson for dummies

It was 1993 when the British science minister William Waldegrave, noticed that he was spending a lot of money in the pursuit of the Higgs boson . The Higgs boson was a particle postulated in physical theory which people knew nothing about it.

Waldegrave then challenged the physicists: "I have not decided if my department will fund the proposed experiments to search for the Higgs boson, but I promise to fund a bottle of champagne to the person who can explain me what it is." Then, British scientists tried to explain him what Higgs boson was. It was finally the physicist David J. Miller who earned his bottle of champagne after drawing up the following metaphor that attempts to explain what the Higgs boson, for "dummies."

1. The Higgs mechanism

Imagine a meeting of mr Waldegrave political party equally distributed in the room. Each individual is talking to their nearest neighbors. In a given moment the former Prime Minister enters and crosses the room. All politicians get close to him and aggregate to him. As he moves, he attracts more people.

Due to the accumulation of people who always stick together around it, the former Prime Minister acquires a mass larger than normal in physical terms. He gains more momentum for the same speed of movement throughout the room. Momentum is a property of matter (momentum) obtained by multiplying the mass times the speed.

Once he starts moving is more difficult to stop. That is more difficult to set in motion because the process of clumping of politicians has to be restarted. In three dimensions and adding the complications of relativity, this is the Higgs mechanism . To give mass to the particles, it follows that a background field is distorted locally through every particle. This distortion, the clumping of the field around the particle, is what generates the mass of the particle.

The idea comes from the physics of solids. Instead of a field spread throughout an area, a solid contains a lattice or crystalline structure of positively charged atoms. When an electron moves on that network, attracts the atoms, causing the electron effective mass to be 40 times larger than the mass of a free electron.

The postulated of Higgs field in vacuum is a sort of hypothetical lattice which fills our Universe. We need the standard model of matter, otherwise it can not explain why the Z and W particles which carry the weak interactions are so heavy, while those developing electromagnetic forces do not even have any mass.

2. The Higgs boson

Now consider a rumor spreading in our room full of politicians. Those near the door and listen first to know the details pile up, then come back and his next door neighbors who also want to know what it is. A wave of clumping across the room. Can be expanded to all corners, or can form a group that carries the news along a line of politicians from the door to some dignitary from across the room.

As the sound information is carried by a cluster of people, and as was also a buildup of people which gave extra mass to the former Prime Minister then it follows that the cluster that carries the sound also has a mass. It is believed that the Higgs boson is precisely that cohesive force within the Higgs field. It would be much easier to confirm the Higgs mechanism that gives mass to all particles, if we discover directly the Higgs boson, if we could see it in the laboratory.

Again, there are analogies with solid state physics. A crystal structure can withstand waves accumulate without the need for an electron to move and attract the atoms. These waves can behave like particles. They are called phonons, and are bosons. Could there be a Higgs mechanism, and a Higgs field through our universe, without which there is a Higgs boson. The new generation of colliders capable of generating huge amounts of energy (the necessary) could solve the mystery.

Image Sources: UCL HEP group : A quasi-political Explanation of the Higgs Boson, for Mr Waldegrave, UK Science Minister 1993.