Higgs Boson

Why in the News? 

Nobel Laureate Physicist Peter Higgs passed away recently.

About Peter Higgs

• Peter Higgs proposed the Higgs field in 1964 as a new field that fills the entire Universe and gives mass to all elementary particles. 
  • Also, he proposed a new fundamental particle ‘Higgs Boson’. 
• His idea was validated in 2012 through a Toroidal LHC Apparatus (ATLAS) and Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiments at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)'s Large Hadron Collider. 
• The discovery was followed by the award of a Nobel Prize in 2013.

About Elementary Particles (Fundamental Particles) Elementary particles are the smallest known building blocks of the universe. These particles join together to create the more well-known particles, such as the neutron and the proton. E.g. Protons are made from two up quarks and a down quark, while neutrons are composed of two down and an up quarks.

Relationship between Higgs Field and Mass of Elementary Particles 

• Mass from interaction: The idea of the Higgs field highlights that particles do not have a mass of their own, they get their mass by interacting with the Higgs field.
  • This mass-giving interaction with the Higgs field is known as the Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism, proposed by theorists Robert Brout, François Englert and Peter Higgs. 
• Quantity of mass: The intensity of interaction between the field and the particle decides the quantity of mass of the particle. It means that stronger the interaction of the particle with the Higgs field, heavier the particle ends up being. 
  • Photons, for example, do not interact with this field and therefore have no mass.
  • Other elementary particles, including electrons, quarks, and bosons, do interact and hence have a variety of masses.

About Higgs Boson

• It is an elementary particle and it is popularly known as the God particle. 
• It is a type of boson, a force-carrying subatomic particle.
  • Other bosons include photons (light, carrying electromagnetic force), gluons (particles that act as force carriers in the nucleus), etc. 
• It gets its mass just like other particles—from its interactions with the Higgs field.
• Properties of Higgs Boson:
  • Mass: It has a mass of 125 GeV/c2 (a unit of mass used for subatomic particles), which is about 130 times the mass of a proton.
    • A Higgs boson can also interact with another Higgs boson (this property helped in knowing that mass of Higg’s Boson is greater than that of protons or neutrons).
  • Spin: It is a scalar particle and has ‘0’ spin that is why it does not possess any angular momentum.
    • It is the only elementary particle with no spin.
  • Lifetime: Very short and it rapidly decays into other particles after it is produced in high-energy collisions. 
  • Detection: It is detected indirectly by observing the particles it decays into.
    • It normally decays into pairs of photons or pairs of W or Z bosons (the recent discovery has found the Higgs Boson decaying with a photon and Z boson, which is unusual)
• Importance/Relevance: 
  • The Higgs bosons have confirmed the predictions of the standard model of particle physics.
  • Also, recent evidence of its decay can provide indirect evidence of the existence of particles beyond those predicted by the Standard Model. 
  • It can be a unique portal to finding signs of dark matter due to its distinctive characteristics and properties.
    • Indirectly, it can help in providing clues about the conditions of the early universe. 

Related Information Large Hadron Collider (LHC) It is the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator, set up in 2008 at CERN near Geneva. The LHC consists of a 27-kilometre ring of superconducting magnsets to boost the energy of the particles along the way. The particle beams travelling close to the speed of light are collided inside the LHC. Primary goal of the LHC project is to understand the fundamental structure of matter by re-creating the extreme conditions that occurred in the first few moments of the universe according to the big-bang model. White Rabbit (WR) Technology CERN has launched the White Rabbit Collaboration (WRC) to foster the uptake of White Rabbit technology by Industry. The Collaboration aims to provide dedicated support and training, facilitate R&D projects in the technology. WR technology  It was developed at CERN to provide sub-nanosecond accuracy and picosecond precision of synchronisation for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) accelerator chain.  It was first used in 2012 and in 2020, it was included in the worldwide industry standard known as Precision Time Protocol (PTP).