Theory of Everything: Beyond the Higgs

Nobel Laureate Martinus Veltman says, accelerators may well find direct evidence of Higgs boson and show that the motivations for postulating its existence are correct, but he didn’t believe that things would be so simple. He said, “I must point out that this doesn’t mean that the entire standard model is wrong. Rather, the standard model is probably only an approximation –albeit-a good one of reality.” Even though the only legitimate reason for introducing the Higgs boson is to make the standard model mathematically consistent, much attention has been given to conceptually easier proposal that the particle generates masses of all the fundamental particles.

                                           

Central to an understanding of how Higgs particle would generate mass is the concept of a field. Fields generally make themselves felt by means of the exchange of a mediating particle; the particle that mediates the electromagnetic field, for example, is the photon or quantum of light. The mediating particles of the gravitational field, the weak field and the strong field, are respectively the graviton, three weak vector bosons, called the W⁺, W^- and Z⁰, particles and eight gluons. In a somewhat analogous way, the Higgs boson is the mediating particle of the proposed Higgs field.

  

There could be both scalar and vector fields. The Higgs boson is called a scalar boson, in terms of interacting with vector bosons, the force by which particles couple must be a new force, which could be long range spin-spin interactions. The spin of scalar boson is 0, vector bosons have spin 1. Higgs force is however a 

weaker and has a shorter range than the “fifth force”.

Introduction of Higgs field destroys the nature of space-time, Einstein had spoken, it is curved. That vacuum without Higgs field is curved in a negative sense; it has a cosmological constant with a negative sign. Introduction of Higgs field flatten out space to make precisely the universe as we know it.

The SU(5) grand unified theory seeks to bind the strong force and electroweak force into on common force; the designation SU(5) refers to the mathematical group of symmetries on which the theory is based. The unification of strong and weak forces require an additional set of scalar and vector bosons, whose masses are expected to several orders of magnitude greater than the masses of the weak vector bosons. In the SU(5) theory, the vacuum contains more than one Higgs like field, that couples with different strength to different particles. The most important thing of SU(5) theory is that Quarks, through the new set of bosons can change into leptons. Martinus veltman says, he believes that the main concept of SU(5) theory will survive over the long run.

Moreover, if the SU(5) grand unification theory is correct and Higgs field does exist, magnetic monopoles should be created in the first few seconds of the universe. In his Nature article, Romain Hivet and colleagues describe solution based on analogy between Dirac nodal lines and topological defects in Bose condensate- a system of bosons (quantum particles of integer spin) that have condensed to predominantly occupy a single quantum state. If the condensate carries both phase and spin then the combination of a π-winding in phase and a spin flip can in principle give a monopole- like texture.

Polariton Monopoles

Hivet et al. instead constructed effective monopoles in another type of spinor Bose condensate; formed by two-dimensional exciton polaritons in a semiconductor microcavity. Exciton polaritons are quasiparticles with the mixed characteristics of a photon and an electronic excitation (an exciton). They have integer spin and a very small effective mass, which leads to effective condensation at a relatively high temperature. The wavefunction of the polariton condensate can be described by an effective field of spins interacting with a controllable effective magnetic field. The momentum, energy and spin state of the polaritons can be imaged in direct space via the distribution and polarization of the photons they emit on decay. Such magnetic textures have been considered as elements for future logic devices, hinting at a far-off application for polariton monopoles. In this regard polariton monopoles have at least one huge advantage over their rivals: owing to their photonic component they are extremely fast, with velocities approaching the speed of light.

N Rougemaille says, in his New Journal of Physics paper that their simulation work predicts that the chirality of these monopoles can be controlled without altering their charge state. This chirality breaks the vertex symmetry and triggers a directional motion of the monopole under an applied magnetic field. Their results also show that the choice of the geometrical features of the lattice can be used to turn on and off this chirality, thus allowing the investigation of chiral and achiral monopoles.

Proponents of the SU(5) theory differ over internal composition of the monopole, and over how many monopoles should exist; it is generally agreed that the monopole should have enormous mass for an elementary particle. As it happens, in the electroweak theory, the employment of only the simplest type of Higgs field leads to a relation between masses of W and Z⁰ bosons, the ratio of the mass of W bosons to the mass of Z⁰  bosons, is expresses as rho-parameter. The expected value of rho-parameter is 1, if there are more than one Higgs field the rho- parameter value can take on virtually any value, otherwise, it is implicated that only one Higgs field exists.

Progress in the mathematical theory line would ultimately indicate that the electroweak theory becomes better behaved mathematically and has more predictive power, when Higgs Boson is incorporated into it. Specifically, Higgs boson makes the theory renormalizable: given a few parameters, one can in principle calculate experimentally observable quantities to any desired precision. A nonrenormalizable theory, in contrast, has no predictive power beyond a certain limit: the theory is incomplete and solutions to certain problems are nonsense. Martinus veltman says, “I must point out, however, that electroweak theory can make powerful predictions even without the Higgs Boson.”

Thinking to go beyond……