Naked Science Forum

Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: flr on 16/03/2013 02:30:23

Title: What are the units of the Higgs field?
Post by: flr on 16/03/2013 02:30:23
What are the units of measurements for Higgs field?

For electrostatic field, the unit it Volt. What is for Higgs field? Or is not like that?

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Title: Re: Higgs fiels; units of measurements
Post by: yor_on on 16/03/2013 23:03:05
You can't really measure it Flr. You can measure the interactions in a acceleration chamber, and then look for signs of new particles getting created that fit the theoretical model of a interaction with the Higgs field. So when CERN moved through different energy regimes they was looking for those signs. And they found it around 125 GeV

"The Higgs boson cannot be detected directly; it can only be detected through the particles it decays into. In one model of “Higgs decay,” the boson decays into two photons. These photons can be detected by the complex array of detectors inside the ATLAS and CMS experiments — so when you hear the term “excess of photons,” it means that some decay process after a particle collision is generating photons in a measurable quantity. By analyzing the energies of these photon excesses, through a little physics detective work the parent particle can be revealed."

The two photon signal is the cleanest indication you can get in that a 'Higg interaction', creating photons from a Higg's field is extremely rare. You just don't see them, but if you do they are a good validation of the model predicting a Higg field. Another problem is that there is nothing more found :) No dark matter, or energy, or anything. Just the signal for this Higg, almost as nature decided to let her kids 'get those goodies' but no more, ahem..
Title: Re: What are the units of the Higgs field?
Post by: imatfaal on 17/03/2013 22:38:23
That's a good one.  Thniking about the other fields - the Electric field actually has units of Newtons per Coulomb, or Volts per Metre.  By analogy I would guess the Gravitational could be said to have units of Newtons per Kilogram (or I suppose Joules per Kilogram per metre).  But these two fields are remarkably similar.  The other fields -  no idea.