The groundbreaking
discovery of the Higgs boson was announced by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations
on 4th July 2012. The discovery described how elementary particles that have
mass get their masses. Simultaneously, it marked something no less fundamental:
the beginning of an era of determining in detail the particle’s properties and
finding out what they might reveal about the universe.
One such
property is the particle’s mass, which at 125 GeV is outrageously little. Several
theories have tried to explain such a small mass, but none has so far been definite
with data.
A duo of
theorists at CERN has recently suggested a new theory to explain both the
lightness of the Higgs boson and another fundamental physics riddle. Their
theory proposes: Early universe is a collection of many universes, each with a
different value of the Higgs mass. Some of these universes had light Higgs
boson.
In this
multiverse model, universes with a heavy Higgs boson collapse in a major smash
in an extremely brief time frame, while universes with a light Higgs boson suffer
this collapse. Our present-day universe would be one of these enduring
light-Higgs universes.
In their theory,
theorists included two new particles and known particles predicted by the
Standard Model. Thus, the theory can explain the puzzling symmetry properties
of the vital force, which binds quarks together into protons and neutrons and
protons and neutrons into atomic nuclei.
Quantum
chromodynamics predicts a potential breakdown in strong interactions of a
fundamental symmetry called CP symmetry. However, such breakdown is not
observed in experiments.
One of the
new particles used in this model can potentially solve this CP problem, making solid
interactions CP symmetric. The same new particle could also be accountable for
dark matter.
The jury
is obviously out on whether the new model or any of the many other models that
have been proposed to clarify the Higgs boson mass or the solid CP issue will
fly.
The
surviving light-Higgs universes. (Image: D’Agnolo and Teresi)
Daniele Teresi of CERN said, “Each model comes with perks and limitations. Our model stands out because it is simple, generic and it solves these two seemingly unrelated puzzles at once. And it predicts distinctive features in data from experiments that aim to search for dark matter or an electric dipole moment in the neutron and other hadrons.”
References:
Raffaele
Tito D’Agnolo and Daniele Teresi et al. Sliding Naturalness: New Solution to
the Strong-CP and Electroweak-Hierarchy Problems. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.128.021803
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