Higgs mechanism

Higgs mechanism

The mechanism by which the W boson and the Z boson and, more generally, all massive particles, acquire their mass. In the mid 1960s Peter Higgs, and independently Robert Brout and François Englert, predicted the existence of a massive spin-zero particle is now known as the Higgs boson. The Higgs boson is associated with a scalar field, now known as the Higgs field.

In the Weinberg–Salam model the W boson and the Z boson which mediate the weak interaction acquire their masses by the Higgs mechanism. Higgs bosons have not been found experimentally, although thorough searches up to 130 GeV have been conducted. It is thought that fermions in the standard model acquire their masses by the Higgs mechanism but it has not been possible to implement this suggestion.

Collins Dictionary of Astronomy © Market House Books Ltd, 2006

Higgs mechanism

[′higz ‚mek·ə‚niz·əm]

(particle physics)

The feature of the spontaneously broken gage symmetries that the Goldstone bosons do not appear as physical particles, but instead constitute the zero helicity states of gage vector bosons of nonzero mass (such as the intermediate vector boson).

(quantum mechanics)

A mathematical procedure in which particles in a field theory gain or lose mass due to spontaneous breakdown of symmetry.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.