A duo of theorists proposes a brand new principle to clarify each the surprisingly small mass of the Higgs boson and the puzzling symmetry properties of the sturdy drive.
The invention of the Higgs boson was a landmark within the historical past of physics. It defined one thing basic: how elementary particles which have mass get their lots. Nevertheless it additionally marked one thing no much less basic: the start of an period of measuring intimately the particle’s properties and discovering out what they may reveal concerning the nature of the universe.
One such property is the particle’s mass, which at 125 GeV is surprisingly small. Many theories have been put ahead to clarify this small mass, however none has thus far been confirmed with information. In a paper simply printed in Bodily Assessment Letters, Raffaele Tito D’Agnolo of the French Various Energies and Atomic Power Fee (CEA) and Daniele Teresi of CERN suggest a brand new principle to clarify each the lightness of the Higgs boson and one other basic physics puzzle.
In broad brushes, the duo’s principle works like this. In its early moments, the universe is a group of many universes every with a distinct worth of the Higgs mass, and in a few of these universes the Higgs boson is mild. On this multiverse mannequin, universes with a heavy Higgs boson collapse in an enormous crunch in a really brief time, whereas universes with a lightweight Higgs boson survive this collapse. Our present-day universe could be considered one of these surviving light-Higgs universes.
What’s extra, the mannequin, which incorporates two new particles along with the recognized particles predicted by the Normal Mannequin, may clarify the puzzling symmetry properties of the sturdy drive, which binds quarks collectively into protons and neutrons, and protons and neutrons into atomic nuclei.
Though the idea of the sturdy drive, referred to as quantum chromodynamics, predicts a doable breakdown in sturdy interactions of a basic symmetry referred to as CP symmetry, such a breakdown is just not noticed in experiments. One of many new particles in D’Agnolo and Teresi’s mannequin can remedy this so-called sturdy CP downside, making sturdy interactions CP symmetric. Furthermore, the identical new particle may additionally account for the darkish matter that's thought to make up many of the matter within the universe.
The jury is after all out on whether or not the brand new mannequin, or any of the numerous different fashions which have been proposed to clarify the Higgs boson mass or the sturdy CP downside, will fly.
“Every mannequin comes with perks and limitations,” says Teresi. “Our mannequin stands out as a result of it's easy, generic and it solves these two seemingly unrelated puzzles directly. And it predicts distinctive options in information from experiments that intention to seek for darkish matter or for an electrical dipole second within the neutron and different hadrons.”
Different latest theoretical proposals to clarify the Higgs mass embody the relaxion area mannequin, a brand new phenomenon in quantum cosmology and the egocentric Higss mannequin, to say a number of. Older, extra conventional theories are primarily based on a Higgs boson that may be a composite particle or on a brand new sort of symmetry referred to as supersymmetry. Solely time and information will inform which – if any – of the fashions will prevail.
Reference: “Sliding Naturalness: New Answer to the Robust-CP and Electroweak-Hierarchy Issues” by Raffaele Tito D’Agnolo and Daniele Teresi, 12 January 2022, Bodily Assessment Letters.
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.128.021803
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