(June 10, 2017 at 8:56 pm)Rhondazvous Wrote: Yalza! I think we've been here before in Queen when we used W bosons to turn positrons into electrons. I like that the knowledge builds on itself.
I still get a little glitch in my understanding.
1.I thought that the W boson acts like a catalyst when it turns the positron into a neutrino, isn't it annihilated? How then can it gain mass?
2. I understand that your colleagues detest the term "God particle" when referring to the Higgs boson. would they also object to using the term "primordial soup" to refer to the absolute symmetry that doesn't differentiate one particle from another?
3. If I put a Higgs boson and a gauge boson in a"room" together, how will the Higgs boson react to the gauge boson in a symmetry breaking episode?
1. Yes it is annihilated. Whatever energy is carried by the W boson is then inherited by the new particle. But the W bosons e.g. causing beta decay are what is called virtual W bosons which do not have to carry all the energy that would usually come with its assigned mass via E=mc^2.
2. The name God particle is stupid because the name in no way adequately represents what the particle does, but primordial soup is ok I think.
3. The higgs boson would be absorbed by the gauge boson and vanish, but that only ç if it is a massive gauge boson.
The fool hath said in his heart, There is a God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Psalm 14, KJV revised edition
