Higgs Boson - Unveiling the Mysteries of the God Particle

Learn about the Higgs boson's discovery, its definition, significance, and what a Higgs field is in this article.

Read More: World Environment Day 2023

Francois Englert and Peter Higgs received the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics in recognition of their contributions to the advancement of the Higgs field and Higgs boson hypothesis. The Standard Model of particle physics, which unifies the weak and strong electromagnetic forces, was founded on their investigation, which explained why elementary particles have mass. The existence of particle mass is crucial to several issues in particle physics. The existence of the Higgs field, which is crucial to the Standard Model and many other particle physics theories, was confirmed with the finding of the Higgs boson, making it a landmark discovery.

Read More: Download the complete second season of Asur

What Is a Higgs Boson?

One of the 17 fundamental particles that make up the Standard Model of particle physics, the most accurate scientific theory regarding how the universe's fundamental particles behave, is the Higgs boson. Because of its importance in subatomic physics, it is frequently referred to as the "God particle".

The basic particle known as the Higgs boson is connected to the Higgs field, which gives quarks and electrons their mass. The degree to which a force influences the speed or position of a particle depends on its mass. Like the photon, which contains electromagnetic energy but not mass, all elementary particles are massless. The quantity of inertia that characterises a particle's presence at any particular location is defined by its mass.

What Is a Higgs Field?

The field of energy that permeating the cosmos is known as the Higgs field, as hypothesised by Peter Higgs in 1964. Elementary particles interact with an unseen field called the Higgs field and gain mass as a result. Different particles, including as quarks, photons, and electrons, have different masses because the Higgs field does not effect them all in the same way. A particle's mass increases with its Higgs field binding strength.

In the early 1960s, physics had a sound explanation for electromagnetic and weak nuclear interactions. Deep parallels between the two were found, though. However, given the fact that particles in nature had mass, a theoretical approach at a higher level needed that particles be massless. Peter Higgs first submitted his unidentified Higgs field original article to the Physical Review Letters publication in 1964. He made a fresh prediction in his revised paper that a new elementary particle would be connected to the Higgs field. It belonged to a brand-new group of highly massive elementary particles called bosons. The Higgs boson is the name given to this particle subsequently.

The Discovery of the Higgs Boson

Regarding the masses of all basic particles, the Higgs hypothesis has shown to be compelling. Examining a Higgs boson was the only method to verify the theory. It was predicted that the Higgs boson would be unstable and split into multiple particles in a nanosecond. Due to its immense mass by subatomic standards, it could only be created through collisions with extraordinarily high energies. One of CERN's main objectives in creating the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the most potent particle accelerator in existence, was to observe the Higgs boson.

Scientists only learnt about the Higgs Boson when the LHC started operating in 2008 because its mass required to be greater than 114 billion electron volts (eV). With an increasing number of observations revealing a Higgs-like particle of around 125 billion eV, the LHC rose to the occasion. 50 years after its initial suggestion, CERN reported the discovery of the Higgs boson on July 4, 2012.

The 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics went to Francois Englert and Peter Higgs for their theoretical discovery of the Higgs mechanism, which made a substantial contribution to understanding the origin of the mass of subatomic particles and supported the identification of the Higgs boson basic particle. The discovery was significant because it proved that the Higgs field existed, which is necessary for the Standard Model and numerous other particle physics theories.

Read More:- World No Tobacco Day 2023 UPSC

Large Hadron Collider (LHC)

To find out what the Higgs field is, how it works, and whether it is elementary or composite, the LHC was built. The LHC was built with considerably more goals in mind than only finding the Higgs Boson. Scientists constructed the largest and most powerful particle accelerator in the world in a 100-meter-long subterranean tunnel in France and Switzerland. With an energy of up to 7 TeV (Total Enterprise Value), they fired protons around the 17-mile ring of superconducting magnets around the LHC. After smashing the speeding particles together, researchers looked for indications of a damaged Higgs. After two years of operation and more than 300 trillion distinct collisions, the Higgs boson's discovery was revealed.

Conclusion

The Higgs Boson was a concept introduced by the standard model of particle physics. According to this theory, the Higgs field contains basic particles called Higgs Bosons. It is through interactions with the Higgs field that elementary particles acquire mass. The Higgs boson also acquires mass in a similar manner. It is known as the "God Particle" since it is the fundamental building block of atoms and maintains the coherence of the cosmos. After years of testing, CERN announced in 2012 that it had discovered the Higgs boson. The LHC was built to study what a Higgs boson is.