The paper is notable because it takes these related notions from being mere numerology, to something with some plausible theoretical foundation and can close the gaps between rough first order theoretical estimates and reality in a precise, calculable, falsifiable way. There is a lot of suggestive evidence that he is barking up the right tree. And, there is much to like about the idea of a Higgs boson as a composite of the Standard Model gauge bosons as discussed in the final section of this post.
The preprint discusses that the Higgs boson mass is close to half of the Higgs vev, 123 GeV (actually closer to 123.11 GeV), a 2% difference. This gap is material, on the order of a five sigma difference from the experimentally measured value, but the explanation for the discrepancy is interesting and plausible (some mathematical symbols translated into words):
The resulting value MH = ½v = 123 GeV matches the observed Higgs mass of 126 GeV to about 2%. A comparable agreement exists between the tree-level mass of the W gauge boson MW = ½gv = 78.9 GeV in (8) and its observed mass of 80.4 GeV. Such an accuracy is typical of the tree-level approximation, which neglects loop corrections of the order the weak force coupling constant = g^2/4pi which is approximately equal to 3%. It is reassuring to see the Higgs mass emerging directly from the concept of a Higgs boson composed of gauge bosons.The summary at the end of the paper notes that:
In summary, a new concept is proposed for electroweak symmetry breaking, where the Higgs boson is identified with a scalar combination of gauge bosons in gauge invariant fashion. That explains the mass of the Higgs boson with 2% accuracy. In order to replace the standard Higgs scalar, the Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism of symmetry breaking is generalized from scalars to vectors. The ad-hoc Higgs potential of the standard model is replaced by self-interactions of the SU(2) gauge bosons which can be calculated without adjustable parameters. This leads to finite VEVs of the transverse gauge bosons, which in turn generate gauge boson masses and self-interactions. Since gauge bosons and their interactions are connected directly to the symmetry group of a theory via the adjoint representation and gauge-invariant derivatives, the proposed mechanism of dynamical symmetry breaking is applicable to any non-abelian gauge theory, including grand unified theories and supersymmetry.Background: The Standard Model Constants
In order to test this model, the gauge boson self-interactions need to be worked out. These are the self-energies [of the W+/- and Z bosons] and the four-fold vertex corrections [of the WW,WZ, and ZZ boson combinations]. The VEV of the standard Higgs boson which generates masses for the gauge bosons and for the Higgs itself is now replaced by the VEVs acquired by the W+/- and Z gauge bosons via dynamical symmetry breaking. Since the standard Higgs boson interacts with most of the fundamental particles, its replacement implies rewriting a large portion of the standard model. Approximate results may be obtained by calculating gauge boson self-interactions within the standard model, assuming that the contribution of the standard Higgs boson is small for low-energy phenomena. The upcoming high-energy run of the LHC offers a great opportunity to test the characteristic couplings of the composite Higgs boson, as well as the new gauge boson couplings introduced by their VEVs. If confirmed, the concept of a Higgs boson composed of gauge bosons would open the door to escape the confine of the standard model and calculate previously inaccessible masses and couplings, such as the Higgs mass and its couplings.
The combined margin of error weighted experimental value of the Higgs boson mass as of the latest updated results from the LHC in September of 2014 is 125.17 GeV with a one sigma margin of error in the vicinity of about 0.3 GeV-0.5 GeV. In other words, there is at least a 95% probability that the true Higgs boson mass is between 124.17 GeV and 126.17 GeV, and the 95% probability range is probably closer to 124.37 GeV and 125.97 GeV.
The experimentally measured value of the Higgs vev is 246.2279579 +/- 0.0000010 GeV. Conceptually, this is a function of the SU(2) electroweak force coupling constant g and the W boson mass. In practice, it is determined using precision measurements of muon decays.
The other fundamental particle masses in the Standard Model are as follows:
* The top quark mass is 173.34 +/- 0.76 GeV (determined based upon the data from the CDF and D0 experiments at the now closed Tevatron collider and the ATLAS And CMS experiments at the Large Hadron Collider as of March 20, 2014).
* The bottom quark mass is 4.18 +/- 0.03 GeV (per the Particle Data Group). A recent QCD study has claimed, however, that the bottom quark mass is actually 4.169 +/- 0.008 GeV.
* The charm quark mass is 1.275 +/- 0.025 GeV (per the Particle Data Group). A recent QCD study has claimed, however, that the charm quark mass is actually 1.273 +/- 0.006 GeV.
* The strange quark mass is 0.095 +/- 0.005 GeV (per the Particle Data Group).
* The up quark mass and down quark mass, are each less than 0.01 GeV with more than 95% confidence, although the up quark mass and down quark pole masses are ill defined and instead are usually reported at an energy scale of 2 GeV.
* The tau charged lepton mass is 1.77682 +/- 0.00016 GeV (per the Particle Data Group).
* The muon mass is 0.1056583715 +/- 0.0000000035 GeV (per the Particle Data Group).
* The electron mass is 0.000510998928 +/- 0.000000000011 GeV (per the Particle Data Group).
* Each of the three Standard Model neutrino mass eigenstates (regardless of the neutrino mass hierarchy that proves to be correct) is less than 0.000000001 GeV.
* The W boson mass is 80.365 +/- 0.015 GeV.
* The Z boson mass is 91.1876 +/- 0.021 GeV.
* Photons and gluons have an exactly zero rest mass (as does the hypothetical graviton).
The only other experimentally determined Standard Model constants not set forth above are:
* The strong force coupling constant (about 0.1185 +/- 0.0006 at the Z boson mass energy scale per the Particle Data Group).
* The U(1) electroweak coupling constant g', which is known with exquisite precision. I believe that the value of g is about 0.65293 and that the value of g' is about 0.34969 (both of which are known with much greater precision).
* The four parameters of the CKM matrix, which are known with considerable precision. In the Wolfenstein parameterization, they are λ = 0.22537 ± 0.00061 , A = 0.814+0.023 −0.024, ρ¯ = 0.117 ± 0.021 , η¯ = 0.353 ± 0.013.
* The four parameters of the PMNS matrix; three of which are known with moderate accuracy. These three parameters are theta12=33.36 +0.81/-0.78 degrees, theta23=40.0+2.1/-1/5 degrees or 50.4+1.3/-1.3 degrees, and theta12=8.66+0,44/-0.46 degrees.
None of these are pertinent to the issues discussed in this post. All of these except the CP violating phase of the PMNS matrix and the quadrant of one of the PMNS matrix parameters has been measured with reasonable precision.
General relativity involves two constants (Newton's constant which is 6.67384(80)×10−11 m3*kg−1*s−2 and the cosmological constant which is approximately 10-52 m-2).
In addition, Planck's constant (6.62606957(29)×10−34 J*s) and the speed of light (299792458 m*s−1) are experimentally measured constants (even though the speed of light's value is now part of the definition of the meter), that are known with great precision and which must be known to do fundamental physics in the Standard Model and/or General Relativity.
A small number of additional experimentally determined constants may be necessary to describe dark matter phenomena and cosmological inflation.
A Higgs Boson Mass Numerology Recap
The intermediate equations in the tree-level analysis in the paper suggests how the 125.98 +/- 0.03 GeV/c^2 value that the simple 2H=2W+Z formula suggests could be close to the actual result. If this similar formula were true, the combined electroweak fits of the W boson mass, top quark mass and Higgs boson mass favor a value at the low end of that range, perhaps 125.95 GeV/c^2.
* * *
An alternative possibility, in which one half of the Higgs boson mass equals exactly the sum of the squares of the massive fundamental bosons of the Standard Model (and the sum of the squares of the masses of the fundamental fermions has the same value as the sum of the squares of the boson masses), i.e., for Higgs vev=V, Higgs boson mass=H, W boson mass=W, and Z boson mass=Z:
H^2=(V^2)/2-W^2-Z^2, implies a Higgs boson mass of 124.648 +/- 0.010 GeV, with combined combined electroweak fits favoring a value at the high end of this range (perhaps 124.658 GeV). (This would imply a top quark mass of about 174.1 GeV which is consistent with the current best estimates of the top quark mass; a slightly lower top quark mass of 173.1 GeV would be implied if the Higgs boson mass were, for instance, 125.95 GeV; both of these top quark masses are within 1 standard deviation of the experimentally measured value of the top quark mass).
This could also have roots in the analysis in the paper, which includes half of the square of the Higgs vev, the W boson mass, and the Z boson mass in its analysis (and has terms for the photon mass that drop out because the photon has a zero mass).
* * *
Thus, both alternative possibilities (2H=2W+Z and sum of F^2= sum of B^2= 1/2 Higgs vev) are roughly consistent with the experimental evidence, although they are clearly inconsistent with each other using pole masses for each boson.
It is also possible, however, that the correct scale at which to evaluate the masses in these formulas might, for example, be closer to the Higgs vev energy scale of about 246 GeV, and that at that scale, both formulas might be true simultaneously. Renormalization of masses as energy scales increase shrink the fundamental gauge boson masses more rapidly than they shrink the fundamental fermion masses, and an energy scale at which the sums of the squares of the fermion masses equal the sum of the squares of the boson masses is less than 1,000 GeV (i.e. 1 TeV) and not less than the value determined using the pole masses of the respective fundamental particles.
In a naive calculation using the best known values of the fundamental fermion and boson masses, the sum of the square of the fermion masses are not quite equal to the sum of the square of the boson masses (including the Higgs boson mass). But, the uncertainties in the top quark mass, the Higgs boson mass, and the W boson mass (in that order) are sufficient to make it unclear how the sum of the square of the fermion masses relate to the sum of the square of the boson masses either at pole masses or at any other energy scale. The uncertainties in these three squared masses, predominate over any uncertainties in the masses of the other 11 fermions, the Z boson (whose mass is known with seven times more precision than the W boson despite having a higher absolute value), and uncertainty in the value of the Higgs vev.
If these top quark and Higgs boson mass measurements could be made about three times more precise than the current state of the art experimental measurments, most of the current uncertainty regarding the nature of the Higgs boson mass and the relationship of the fundamental particle masses to the Higgs vev could be eliminated. The remainder of the LHC experiments will almost surely improve the accuracy of both of these measurements, but may be hard pressed to improve them by that much before these experiments are completed.
What Does A Composite Higgs Boson Hypothesis Imply?
It is always a plus to be able to derive any experimentally determined Standard Model parameter from other Standard Model parameters, reducing the number of degrees of freedom in the theory. This would make electroweak unification even more elegant.
More deeply, if the Higgs boson is merely a composite of the Standard Model electroweak gauge bosons, then:
(1) The hierarchy problem as conventionally posed evaporates, because the Higgs boson mass itself is no longer fine tuned. The profound fine tuning of the Higgs boson mass in the Standard Model is the gist of the hierarchy problem. The demise of the hierarchy problem removes an important motivation for SUSY theories.
(2) Some of the issues associated with the hierarchy problem migrate to the question of why the W and Z boson mass scales are what they are, but if the Higgs boson mass works out to be such that the fermionic and bosonic contributions to the Higgs vev are identical, then the W and Z boson masses are a function of the fermion masses and an electroweak mixing angle, or equivalently, the fermion masses are a function of the electroweak boson masses and the texture of the fermion mass matrix.
(3) The spotlight in the mystery of the nature of the fermion mass matrix would cease to be arbitrary coupling constants with the Higgs boson and return squarely to W boson interactions which are the only means in the Standard Model by which fermions of one flavor can transform into fermions of another flavor.
(4) There are no longer any fundamental Standard Model bosons that are not spin-1 (the hypothetical spin-2 graviton is not part of the Standard Model). All fundamental Standard Model fermions are spin-1/2. Eliminating a fundamental spin-0 boson from the Standard Model changes the Lie groups and Lie algebras which can generate the Standard Model fundamental particles without excessive or missing particles in a grand unified theory.
(5) If the Higgs boson couplings are derivative of the W and Z boson couplings, then neutrinos, which couple with the W and Z boson, although only via the weak force, should derive their masses via the composite Higgs boson mechanism, just as other fermions in the Standard Model do. This implies that neutrinos should have Dirac mass just like other particles that derive their masses from the same interactions.
(6) A composite Higgs boson makes models with additional Higgs doublets less plausible, except to the extent that different combinations of fundamental Standard Model gauge bosons can generate these exotic Higgs bosons, which if they can, would then have masses and other properties that could be determined from first principles and would be divorced from supersymmetry theories.
(7) A composite Higgs boson might slightly tweak the running of the Standard Model coupling constants, influencing gauge unification at high energies (as could quantum gravity effects). A slight tweak of 1-2% to the running of one or more of the coupling constants over from the electroweak scale to the Planck or GUT scale (more than a dozen orders of magnitude), is all that would be necessary for the Standard Model coupling constants to unify at some extremely high energy. It may also have implications for the unstable v. metastable v. stable nature of the vacuum.
The values for g and g' are based upon tree-level approximations and are not exact.
ReplyDeleteI saw this paper and thought of you. But I also didn't read it, because I thought there *had* to be some error in it.
ReplyDeleteIt's been a few months since I thought about these issues. Maybe I'll ease back into it, by trying to identify a definite problem with this paper...
The most glaring big issue is that the 123.11 GeV "prediction" at tree level is 2% different from the 125.17 +/- 0.4 GeV experimental value (a 5.15 sigma discrepancy if I have the MOE of the combined estimate of the Higgs mass right at 0.4 GeV), and he merely suggests that the loop correction to the tree level estimate should be of about the right order of magnitude without actually doing the calculations on the loop corrections, which while a lot more work, aren't that difficult to work out from published sources.
ReplyDeleteThere may, of course, be other big issues as well.
On the other hand, if the loop corrections real nails it, for example, producing the same 124.65 GeV value that you'd expect if the sum of the square of the fundamental boson masses equal 0.5v, then this starts to look really ground breaking.
The loop corrections, which are very well defined should produce a theoretical prediction for the Higgs boson mass that is precise to four or five significant digits, so it is falsifiable in principle, and if it is too far from the measured experimental value, in practice as well.
There's something (or many things) wrong with the paper at the level of theory, I'm sure of it.
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing like a quantum-mechanical calculation at any point in the paper. The fields are never discussed as quantum fields, i.e. as operators. We see a bunch of Feynman diagrams but there aren't any of the corresponding calculations, e.g. integrals over momentum values of virtual particles. Instead we just have some unknown uncalculated quantities - self-energies Σ and loop corrections Λ - and it seems like Himpsel figures out what their values ought to be, if they are to give the observed gauge boson masses and Higgs mass and VEV. Then there's the odd stuff about VEVs of transverse excitations of gauge bosons, and the fact that his correspondence is for a *pair* of Higgs bosons - so how will he deal with the sort of events that the LHC observes, where a single Higgs is emitted and decays?
Also, his "prediction" is imprecise because it is nothing but the usual observation that the Higgs mass is close to half the Higgs vev. It seems to me that his whole theoretical apparatus may have been set up in an attempt to make that so, and then he can hope that that 2% will be accounted for by corrections... But meanwhile, the apparatus itself looks very dodgy.
His theoretical framework seems to be based on an approximation intended for the situation where the Higgs boson mass is much greater than the Higgs VEV, presumably coming from somewhere among his many references 8-14.
Anyway, I have not reconstructed how his argument works and where its components came from, I'm just voicing some obvious qualms.
I also acknowledge that it's the job of theorists to try to explain facts, and that in doing so they may come up with ansatze, etc, which at first violate some customary rule. But I would be extremely surprised if this particular conceptual helter-skelter worked out.