Everything You Wanted to Know about the HIGGS BOSON But were afraid to ask… Crepe Place “Science on Tap” Gathering May

THE HIGGS BOSON: WHAT IS IT? Many have tried to define and describe the Higgs boson to audiences of non-physicists Few have lived to tell the tale. Please: If you haven’t already, check your rifles and shivs with the door man… America’s Most Wanted

THE “FOUR FORCES OF NATURE” The Universe is only an interesting place because of causation – the capability of objects to exert influence on one another. Current evidence tells us that this influence is brought about through four modes of interaction: Gravity – that persistent tug Electromagnetism – pretty much everything we sense Nuclear interaction (weak) – nuclear  -decay (obscure) Nuclear interaction (strong) – holds together nuclei Why the quotes? There really aren’t four of them. Nor is the term “force” is general enough to specify their role in nature…

UNIFICATION Physicist in the shower: “Hmmm… ain’t but one universe. Why should it have four forces? One force would make a lot more sense.”  Unification But… they’re all so different! Let’s start with electromagnetism and the weak nuclear force It’s from the resulting unified theory of the “electroweak force” that the Higgs boson arises

WHAT – ME WORRY? Does anyone really care about the Weak Nuclear Force? Solar burning cycle (proton + proton  Deuterium + other junk) Heavy elements (i.e. anything heavier than Hydrogen) Medical physics (beta decay tracers) BTW: If the Weak Nuclear Force were much stronger, the sun would burn too fast

Relativistic Quantum Field Theory Main Architect: Richard “Dick” Feynman In a nutshell: Objects influence one another by tossing things around. For Electromagnetism, that “thing” is just the photon For the Weak Nuclear Force, there are three: the W+, W-, and Z 0 bosons. “photon" Electron #2 Electron #1 x (position) t (time) N.B.: These things are collectively know as “field quanta”

WHY IS THE WEAK FORCE WEAK? Z0Z0 Electron #2 Electron #1 x (position) t (time) What if we replace the photon with the Z 0 ? Still works! (Feynman: anything that can happen must happen). So why so much less likely than photon exchange? Quantum Mechanics: R = Range of Influence M = Exchanged object mass R  1/M

WHY IS THE WEAK FORCE WEAK? Z0Z0 Electron #2 Electron #1 x (position) t (time) R = Range of Influence M = Exchanged object mass R  1/M Z 0 mass = 80 “GeV” For this mass R  meters, or about 1/1000 of a proton radius! So it’s not really weak, you’re just very unlikely to get close enough!

THE PROBLEM: Massive force particles don’t work with quantum field theory THE SOLUTION: The Higgs Mechanism All-pervasive Higgs field is “sticky”, and gives particles inertia that is in every way like mass, but really isn’t (“effective mass”). So force (and matter!) particles can have mass And oh… by the way… if there is such a field, there needs to be at least one particle associated with it  Higgs Boson

“Freezing out” of the Higgs field leads to faster-than-light expansion INFLATION

THE HUNT IS ON (SINCE THE 1960s) CERN

WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER

THE HIGGS BOSON: WHAT IS IT?

THE ATLAS DETECTOR

SEARCHING FOR THE HIGGS (H) H decays immediately when made Sometimes to two photons (H   ) This is a very “clean” experimental signals

THE HIGGS BOSON: WHAT IS IT?

IS IT REALLY THE HIGGS? ATLAS SAYS… The answer you should get if it is indeed the Higgs What ATLAS sees for various expected decays of the Hoggs

THE HIGGS BOSON: WHAT IS IT? IS IT REALLY THE HIGGS? CMS SAYS… The “yeah it’s a Higgs” line

SHAMELESS PLUG “For people who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like” Oscar Wilde For the gory details… including how abstract math comes into, and is indispensable to, our fundamental description of nature

OK – WHAT NOW??!! We vanquished Electro-Weak Unification What about the other forces? 1) Mix in the strong nuclear force e.g. Supersymmetry, with “shadow world” of partner particles, including dark matter candidate  Testable 2) And then mix in gravity  String Theory Very difficult to test (“Planck length”  m, or about of a proton radius

Our leading framework for unifying strong and Electroweak forces Every known particle (including Higgs) has “supersymmetric partner” In fact, there are (at least) five Higgs In Spersymmetric models. If the one we’ve found is one of these, its properties would be subtly different than expected The search is on! A WORD ON SUPERSYMMETRY

THE NEXT GREAT MACHINE ? SUPERSYMMETRY ???????

SO, THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION AND FOREBEARANCE So in the end, what about this Higgs thingy? Won’t end warfare, address climate change, redefine our relationship with our natural environment Is a profound confirmation of a remarkable prediction Raises as many questions as it answers  How precisely does it hew to expectations?  What is this “Higgs Potential”  What does it tell us about the formation of the universe Its prediction and production stand, I believe, as one of the greatest triumphs of human intellect and cross- cultural collaboration.

THE HIGGS BOSON: WHAT IS IT?