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The importance of the Higgs boson largely is that it is able to be examined using existing knowledge and experimental technology, as a way to confirm and study the entire Higgs field theory. [ 11 ] [ 12 ] Conversely, proof that the Higgs field and boson did not exist would have also been significant.
In the Standard Model of particle physics, the Higgs mechanism is essential to explain the generation mechanism of the property "mass" for gauge bosons.Without the Higgs mechanism, all bosons (one of the two classes of particles, the other being fermions) would be considered massless, but measurements show that the W +, W −, and Z 0 bosons actually have relatively large masses of around 80 ...
The search for the Higgs boson was a 40-year effort by physicists to prove the existence or non-existence of the Higgs boson, first theorised in the 1960s.The Higgs boson was the last unobserved fundamental particle in the Standard Model of particle physics, and its discovery was described as being the "ultimate verification" of the Standard Model. [1]
But progress made since 2012 to determine its properties have allowed physicists to make big steps forward in our understanding of the universe.
The Higgs boson plays a unique role in the Standard Model, by explaining why the other elementary particles, except the photon and gluon, are massive. In particular, the Higgs boson explains why the photon has no mass, while the W and Z bosons are very heavy.
Because the reduced Compton wavelength of the Higgs boson is so small (1.576 × 10 −18 m, comparable to the W and Z bosons), this potential has an effective range of a few attometers. Between two electrons, it begins roughly 10 11 times weaker than the weak interaction , and grows exponentially weaker at non-zero distances.
Two of the three PRL papers (by Higgs and by GHK) contained equations for the hypothetical field that eventually would become known as the Higgs field and its hypothetical quantum, the Higgs boson. [3] [4] Higgs's subsequent 1966 paper showed the decay mechanism of the boson; only a massive boson can decay and the decays can prove the mechanism.
Standard Model of Particle Physics. The diagram shows the elementary particles of the Standard Model (the Higgs boson, the three generations of quarks and leptons, and the gauge bosons), including their names, masses, spins, charges, chiralities, and interactions with the strong, weak and electromagnetic forces.