In 1964, British physicist Peter Higgs published an academic theoretical article proposing the existence of a particle field and predicting the existence of a boson that can attract other particles and thereby produce mass. He believed that this kind of

Bosons are the source of mass of matter and are the basis for the formation of mass by electrons, quarks, etc. Other particles swim in the field formed by these particles and generate inertia, thereby forming mass and constructing the world.

In the standard model, various particles are predicted, and these particles have been discovered one after another. At present, only this magical particle is left, and this particle is named by others as 'Higgs' and becomes 'Higgs Bose'.

Particle', nicknamed 'God Particle'.

Higgs is a giant in particle physics. He proposed the Higgs mechanism. In this mechanism, the Higgs field causes the symmetry of the electroweak interaction to spontaneously break, and gives mass to gauge bosons and feeble particles.

Mions and Higgs particles are field quantized excitations of the Higgs field, which gain mass through self-interaction.

The European Large Hadron Collider will have a chance to discover the Higgs particle.

When talking about the Higgs and the Higgs boson, we have to mention Braut and Engler.

Although Higgs, Braut and Engler belong to different countries, they are regarded as the same group in the physics community. The official name of the Higgs mechanism at CERN is Braut-Engler-Higgs.

Gus mechanism.

Unfortunately, after the discovery of the Higgs boson, Peter Higgs and Francois Engler won the Nobel Prize in Physics at the same time, and what is regrettable is that Robert Braut passed away before that.

Missed this award.

In other words, if the Higgs boson had been discovered before Brault's death, then the three of them would have won the Nobel Prize in Physics, not just Higgs and Engels.

After learning that one of the goals of the launch of the European Large Hadron Collider was to search for the 'God particle' Higgs boson, Liu Yichen became curious and began to study papers and articles related to the Higgs boson.

In the Standard Model theory, elementary particles are divided into three categories: quarks, leptons and bosons. The flaw of the Standard Model is that the model cannot explain the source of the mass of matter. In essence, this field is like a pool of sticky matter.

Honey, except for non-mass elementary particles, will pass through this field.

The particle transforms into a particle with mass, like the constituents of an atom. In the Standard Model, the Higgs particle consists of a region with a neutral and two charged components. The two charged and one neutral regions are both Higgs particles.

The Sri Lankan boson is a longitudinal three-polarized component with mass w, w- and z bosons.

Currently theorists predict that new physics will be built on the Standard Model with energies on the terev scale, based on insufficient Standard Model properties. The maximum possible mass of the Higgs particle is 1.4 terev.

To study the Higgs particle, we have to study the Standard Model.

Particle physics experienced a brief difficult period in the 1950s. According to the words of Nobel Prize winner Stephen Weinberg, one of the proposers of the electroweak unified theory, it was "an era full of frustration and confusion."

”, almost all the theories that had been applied at that time encountered big problems.

And it was during this period that an outstanding and great theoretical physicist was born - Yang Zhenning!

In 1952, Yang Zhenning's characteristic in statistical mechanics was his rigorous solution and analysis of universal models rooted in physical reality, thereby beautifully capturing the essence and essence of the problem. Therefore, he and his collaborators published three important theories on phase transitions.

, later known as the 'phase transition theory'. In 1957, Yang Zhenning and his collaborators published a series of studies on rarefied boson multi-dimensional

His papers on body systems, parity non-conservation in weak interactions and the many-body problem of bosons shocked the entire physics community, and he and Lee Tsung-dao won the Nobel Prize in Physics. In the 1960s, the search for non-pairs

The attempt to model the angular length program led Yang Zhenning to the strict solution of the quantum statistical model, and at this time the Yang-Baxter equation was born.

As a result, the non-Abelian gauge field theory based on the Yang-Mills equation gradually constructed the modern Standard Model theory. Since then, the Standard Model has become the mainstream of particle physics. The Standard Model predicts a total of 62 types of particles, and many of its predictions continue to be

Exciting experimental results one after another have confirmed that 61 of the 62 predicted particles have been verified, leaving only the last one, the 'Higgs boson', which has not yet been discovered.

The Standard Model theory has given birth to outstanding mathematicians one after another, and it can be said that they have won the Nobel Prize in Physics.

"The establishment of the Standard Model theory is really great and has brought unimaginable wealth to mankind!" Liu Yichen became more emotional the more he understood it.

Particle physics has developed very rapidly in the past half century, and it can be said that the treasure trove of the Standard Model has been unearthed.

And now in this treasure, the last thing worth exploring is the 'God particle' Higgs boson.

The Standard Model includes two types: fermions and bosons - fermions are particles with half-integer spin and obey the Pauli exclusion principle; bosons have integer spin and do not obey the Pauli exclusion principle.

Principle. Simply put, fermions make up the particles of matter, and bosons are responsible for transmitting various forces. The electroweak unified theory and quantum chromodynamics are merged into one in the standard model.

These theories are all based on gauge field theory, which pairs fermions with bosons to describe the force between fermions. Since the Lagrangian function of each group of intermediate bosons is invariant during gauge transformation,

These intermediate bosons are called "gauge bosons".

The bosons included in the standard model include: photons responsible for transmitting electromagnetic force; w and z bosons responsible for transmitting weak nuclear force; and eight types of gluons responsible for transmitting strong nuclear force.

The Higgs boson is also a kind of boson, but it is different from these gauge bosons. The Higgs boson is responsible for guiding the spontaneous breaking of symmetry in gauge transformations and is the source of inertial mass, so it is not a gauge.

boson.

In the 1960s, the main obstacle encountered by Yang-Mills theory whether it was applied to weak or strong interactions was the problem of mass. Due to the gauge symmetry of gauge theory, gauge bosons are prohibited from having any mass. However, this taboo

However, it is inconsistent with the observations in the experiment. If the quality problem cannot be solved, the entire research will lose its foundation.

At first, people tried to use the spontaneous symmetry breaking mechanism, that is, to break the strict requirements for the symmetry of the Lagrangian quantity in the gauge theory, so that the Lagrangian quantity in the physical vacuum no longer satisfies this symmetry. However, by 1962, every spontaneous

It has been proven that symmetry breaking must be accompanied by a massless and spinless particle, which is undoubtedly impossible.

In 1964, Higgs solved this problem, so that when spontaneous symmetry breaking occurs, the massless and spinless particle still exists, but it will become a component with zero helicity of the gauge particle, thus allowing the gauge particle to obtain

Mass, this is the Higgs mechanism.

The symmetry is broken through the Higgs field, leaving a Higgs particle with zero spin in the real world.

The Higgs particle is called the "God particle". The reason why it is so important is that it can be said to be one of the cornerstones of the entire Standard Model. If the Higgs particle does not exist, the entire Standard Model will be ineffective.

"Liu, how are you? What have you been busy with during this time?" Witten's words came to his ears.

Liu Yichen looked up and said, "We are studying the 'Higgs particle'!"

"'Higgs'? It seems that you are very interested in particle physics. How is it? Have you discovered anything?" Witten said with a smile.

In fact, I said this more casually, because Liu Yichen was not in this field, so how could he possibly make a discovery in such a short period of time? Just looking at the materials is not enough.

Moreover, in recent years, there has been great controversy as to whether the 'God particle', the 'Higgs particle', exists or not, because while 61 other types of particles have been found and verified, the Higgs particle has always remained elusive in the vision of physicists.

outside.

If you find this kind of particle, you will have found the last cornerstone of the Standard Model, the classical theory building of particle physics. If it is proven that it does not exist, then the entire Standard Model building will have to be torn down and rebuilt.

As Sergio Bertolucci, director of research at CERN, said: "If the Higgs boson really does not exist, then its absence will turn people's attention to 'new physics.'"

At present, many of the world's top physics research institutions have tried to find the Higgs boson through collision experiments, but all have failed.

For example, on July 13, 2010, multiple media reported that the Teraelectronvolt accelerator at Fermilab in the United States had probably discovered the Higgs boson. On April 26, 2011, multiple media reported that the LHC had

The legendary 'God particle' - the Higgs boson - was discovered.

Not long ago, on December 13, 2011, CERN announced that it had discovered traces of the Higgs boson. The leaders of the two experimental teams announced that they were at roughly the same position of 124-125gev, that is,

A 'peak' in the data is seen at a position equivalent to 130 times the mass of a proton.

But this is just a trace of the Higgs boson, but it does not mean that it is confirmed to exist or that it is it.

Therefore, this is also the lhc startup experiment that is about to start.

"Professor Witten, I wonder if you can collect the experimental data from last year's LHC and Fermilab?" Liu Yichen looked at Professor Witten: "I think I discovered something strange on the 'God Particle', but now I

Experimental data are needed for analysis and support.”

"Liu, are you serious!?" Witten was stunned for a moment, but then became serious.

As a theoretical physicist, he is very rigorous in his approach to science.

"Of course, but all this has to be analyzed through data. Maybe my calculation is wrong, maybe!" Liu Yichen said.

After all, without experimental data, everything is speculation and may not be true.

－－－－－－Digression－－－－－
Chapter completed!