"God Particle" May Be Five Distinct Particles

[zinfamous]

5 hardons ~ 1 hardon?

 

[Anubis]

someone correct me if im wrong but doesn't Garret Lisi's (that surfer dude) unified theory idea actually predict that these would particles would exist? They talked about it on Through the Wormhole last week or so that his theroy predicted the Higgs and 4 or 5 yet unknown particles

 

[SunnyD]

The Higgs boson is, theoretically, an elementary particle much like a quark or lepton so they don't consist of any smaller particles, if that's what you are asking. The variation of each Higgs 'flavor,' for lack of a better word, is based on their theoretical charge, color (much like quarks are assigned colors), and spin.

Honestly, the theory is highly speculative at this point and overlooks a much more important finding of the experiment; that particle physicists have observed significant symmetry breaking which helps to demonstrate why matter and anti-matter didn't completely annihilate each other after the big bang and why matter came to dominate the universe. iow, without symmetry breaking, we wouldn't be here. We are now finding proof of it, which is probably boring as hell to 99.99999% of people, but I think it's pretty exciting. ymmv.

As is all of this, your conjecture is purely hypothetical. There is nothing stopping the universe from having yet more fundamental particles that make up quarks and such. It is simply our limited technology that prevents us from being able to discern such things - partly why we don't have information on the Higgs boson as of yet either.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

As is all of this, your conjecture is purely hypothetical. There is nothing stopping the universe from having yet more fundamental particles that make up quarks and such. It is simply our limited technology that prevents us from being able to discern such things - partly why we don't have information on the Higgs boson as of yet either.

Of course my reply was hypothetical, hence the copious use of the word theoretical.

Additionally, if elementary particles did actually consist of even smaller particles then the standard model and string theory are both wrong and, thus far at least, the standard model has held up exceedingly well. String theory posits that quarks are comprised of one- or multi-dimensional strings so even smaller particles would rule out that theory as well. Plus, scientists would likely detect some scattering of quarks decaying down into their constituent parts (if they existed) during high-energy collisions and thus far nothing of the sort has been observed.

I'm not saying it's impossible. Even smaller particles could potentially exist. However, present experiments would seem to demonstrate that to be highly unlikely.

 

[ichy]

It makes me happy to see Tevatron have one last hurrah before the US gives up its lead in particle physics to the Europeans. I'm still bitter that they killed the Superconducting Supercollider, should've canceled the useless International Space Station instead...

 

[rivan]

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1005.4238

(Link to pdf of the paper)

We were just talking about this over the weekend, and I totally told my brother-in-law that for a range of couplings and masses, the heavy neutral states in a two Higgs doublet model could generate a large charge asymmetry.

He pointed out I'd been drinking and said he thought such asymmetry could only be explained by a model with three Higgs doublets.

In your FACE, brother in law.

 

[child of wonder]

Ah ha!

So god is not just a trinity of father, son, and holy ghost.

It's actual father, son, holy ghost, ex-wife, and Peter Venkman -- the "yang" to the holy ghost's "yin."

 

[SunnyD]

Of course my reply was hypothetical, hence the copious use of the word theoretical.

Additionally, if elementary particles did actually consist of even smaller particles then the standard model and string theory are both wrong and, thus far at least, the standard model has held up exceedingly well. String theory posits that quarks are comprised of one- or multi-dimensional strings so even smaller particles would rule out that theory as well. Plus, scientists would likely detect some scattering of quarks decaying down into their constituent parts (if they existed) during high-energy collisions and thus far nothing of the sort has been observed.

I'm not saying it's impossible. Even smaller particles could potentially exist. However, present experiments would seem to demonstrate that to be highly unlikely.

Just like present experiments would seem to demonstrate there is no "God particle". But I digress... you hit the name on the head - simply because we haven't observed it doesn't mean it exists (or even violates some theorem if it did). But religion has been using the same argument for eons as well... ironic, isn't it?

 

[Sumguy]

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1005.4238

(Link to pdf of the paper)

So I skipped all the words and looked straight at the equations (something I've seemed to have picked up from all my classes). I was expecting crazy ass formulas, but alas just seems to be algebra.

Until I saw them use what I think are Dirac Delta functions (the upside-down L looking symbols on the right side of the first page).

Then I saw the parametric equations and some funky B symbol I've never seen.

My mind=asploded.

 

[UNCjigga]

HA, there *IS* more than one God, suckaaah!!

<-- Hindu, points finger at all who believe in monotheism!

 

[Locut0s]

Just like present experiments would seem to demonstrate there is no "God particle". But I digress... you hit the name on the head - simply because we haven't observed it doesn't mean it exists (or even violates some theorem if it did). But religion has been using the same argument for eons as well... ironic, isn't it?

Actually my understanding is that the Standard Model as it stands has predicted the Higgs particle for a long time. It's not that we are searching for a particle for no reason, theory predicts it should be there. Also the exact mass of the Higgs is not well nailed down by present theories and it's upper range of possible masses put it just beyond the capabilities of the Tevatron to detect.

 

[DrPizza]

Scientific American isn't even a journal... they're all layman's articles.

Nature is the next step up from that. It's a real journal, but the research published in it has to be simple and interesting.

This paper looks formatted for Physical Review Letters. It's top notch and the papers published there are VERY dense. Even if you do similar research to what is in the paper it can take 3-4 readings to fully grasp what they did.

Very very dense. That short paper said more than my master's thesis. I had a horrible time writing my master's thesis because it was so redundant. Every chapter said the same thing. And then the chapter following it would have the same information restated in a different way. (Like that. ) I wanted to be concise, but the "goal" was to create an incredibly wordy document that demonstrated I could type 90 pages. I could summarize the entire research into 3 or 4 pages, but that wasn't allowed.

 

[SunnyD]

HA, there *IS* more than one God, suckaaah!!

<-- Hindu, points finger at all who believe in monotheism!

How's it feel to know that all of your gods are wrong. MULTI-FAIL!!!

 

[Analog]

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1005.4238

(Link to pdf of the paper)

Nice link, thanks.

 

[OverVolt]

Is that what smart people call calculus?

what the hell was the equal sign with 3 bars.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Just like present experiments would seem to demonstrate there is no "God particle". But I digress... you hit the name on the head - simply because we haven't observed it doesn't mean it exists (or even violates some theorem if it did). But religion has been using the same argument for eons as well... ironic, isn't it?

Present experiments are now hinting at a God particle, and its existence been postulated for some time. We simply haven't had an accelerator with enough oomph to produce them. With the LHC we now do and once it ramps up to full power particle physicists should detect them.

btw, quarks were theoretically predicted before they were actually detected as well.

The difference between particles in our physical world and God is that we can test for particles to prove whether or not they actually exist. So far nobody has figured out how to set up a scientific test to prove God exists. If someone figures out how to do that and finds nothing I doubt that would change the mind of the faithfull. They would go on adhering to their same old beliefs regardless. On the contrary, if the LHC fails to produce the Higgs boson, science will simply shrug and head back to the drawing board to find out why. Then they'll reassess and try to come up with new explanations. That is the glaring difference between science and religion.

 

[Sumguy]

what the hell was the equal sign with 3 bars.

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Defined.html

"Equal by definition"