0

When two high energy photons are smashed together they create a matter-antimatter pair. The photons do not interact with the higgs field, but when they convert into matter-antimatter pair, they start interacting with it.

I am not understanding how something not interacting with it starts interacting with the Higgs field.

peterh
  • 8,208
Poin
  • 159
  • What is missing? – Poin Oct 09 '18 at 12:47
  • "I am not understanding how something not interacting with it starts interacting with the higgs field." - I don't understand you reasoning here. If, by something, you mean a photon, the photon never "starts interacting with the higgs field". On the other hand, if a photon (boson) ceases to exist and a matter-antimatter (fermion) pair comes into existence, why would you be puzzled by their different properties? – Alfred Centauri Oct 09 '18 at 12:47
  • I know there are other methods of pair production. – Poin Oct 09 '18 at 12:53
  • 1
    It is a QFT terminology, it is not about a photon "starting to interact with the Higgs field". Btw, photons don't interact with the Higgs field, because the photon has no rest mass. But, for example, if a photon splits to an electron and a positron, then the players are: 1) the photon field 2) the Higgs field 3) the electron field. This 3 have a common Lagrange. The Lagrange is the difference of the potential and kinetical energy. The whole system is trying to move on pathes where the time integral of the lagrange is minimal or maximal. It can result annihillation or pair production. – peterh Oct 16 '18 at 00:40

1 Answers1

3

You are asking the reader to accept a bad picture that could never make sense.

In your thought experiment, the two photons convert into several varieties of virtual fermion pairs which then recombine to form a Higgs. (Actually, in the lab, LHC/CERN, the time reversed process happens, the Higgs decays to two photons, instead, quite rarely.)

This is technical language reminding QFT users how to calculate the frequency/likelihood of that event: there is no "start" of the interaction. The interaction is a feature of the Higgs particle and the photons and is there in the list of answers, "right from the start": the Higgs simply splits into two photons in an instant. The intermediation of that coupling through a fermion-antifermion pair is a symbolic memo to calculators on how to estimate the coupling from the SM Lagrangian, the starting point of their estimates. You appear to be stretching a shared metaphor for a calculation to something beyond a helpful fantasy.

Cosmas Zachos
  • 62,595