Higgs Field & GR: Are They Related or Not?

In summary, the conversation revolves around the relationship between the Higgs field and general relativity (GR). The OP suggests that since mass is a common core in both pillars of science, there may be a causal relationship between them. However, experts clarify that "matter" in GR actually refers to stress-energy, not just rest mass, and the Higgs mechanism is only one way a quantum field can acquire mass. Therefore, there is no direct causal relationship between the Higgs field and GR. This is further supported by Samalkhaiat's challenge #002, which explores the mathematics of GR and QFT.
  • #1
Dennis Plews
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TL;DR Summary
Higgs Field and GR
Since these two pillars of science have mass as a common core, are they related, essentially the same or not?
 
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  • #2
Dennis Plews said:
these two pillars of science have mass as a common core
What do you mean by that?
 
  • #3
Moderator's note: Thread title edited.
 
  • #4
I don't know what you mean by that either, but I am pretty sure the answer is "no".
 
  • #5
No they are not the same
 
  • #6
It's clear what the OP meant; "Higgs field creates mass" and "mass creates gravity", so there could be a relation between Higgs and gravity. Of course, both claims in quotation marks originate from oversimplified and misleading explanations in pop-sci literature. Neither claim is really true, and there is no relation.
 
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  • #7
Demystifier said:
It's clear what the OP meant
Maybe it seems that way to you, but the person who should be clarifying and explaining what the OP meant is the OP. @Dennis Plews please clarify what you meant, as has already been requested. Otherwise this thread will be deleted.
 
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  • #8
PeterDonis said:
What do you mean by that?
To use a famous quote: “Matter tells spacetime how to curve and spacetime tells matter how to move.” Here I am converting Prof Wheeler’s “matter” to what I consider to be a fair substitute, mass. Mass is now understood to be field excitations that have a positive coupling constant with the Higgs field and thus acquire the property know as mass. Hence it seems fair to inquire of experts if such Higgs couplings are causally related to GR.
 
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  • #9
Dennis Plews said:
“Matter tells spacetime how to curve and spacetime tells matter how to move.”
Ok so far. But:

Dennis Plews said:
Here I am converting Prof Wheeler’s “matter” to what I consider to be a fair substitute, mass.
This is not correct. What "matter" actually means, when you unpack what GR actually says, is "stress-energy". Rest mass is only part of stress-energy, and things that have zero rest mass, like EM radiation, still have stress-energy and are still a source of spacetime curvature (and of course also still get told by spacetime how to move).

Dennis Plews said:
Mass is now understood to be field excitations that have a positive coupling constant with the Higgs field and thus acquire the property know as mass.
This is garbled. The Higgs mechanism is only one possible way that a quantum field can have mass. But in any case, "mass" in this case means "rest mass" (or invariant mass, which is a better term), and, as above, that is not the same thing as stress-energy.

Dennis Plews said:
Hence it seems fair to inquire of experts if such Higgs couplings are causally related to GR.
And the answer is no. See above and previous responses.
 
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  • #11
malawi_glenn said:
No they are not the same
Of course they are not the same. The question is whether they’re connected via their common core of mass. Has anyone examined this commonality to see if they are connected? The first thing that comes to my mind as a possible nexus is the stress energy tensor
 
  • #12
Dennis Plews said:
Of course they are not the same. The question is whether they’re connected via their common core of mass. Has anyone examined this commonality to see if they are connected? The first thing that comes to my mind as a possible nexus is the stress energy tensor
OK, it appears that @Demystifier did indeed understand your question properly when he answered it in post #6 above. I don’t think we can much improve on his answer there.
 
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  • #13
Dennis Plews said:
Of course they are not the same. The question is whether they’re connected via their common core of mass. Has anyone examined this commonality to see if they are connected? The first thing that comes to my mind as a possible nexus is the stress energy tensor
See my post #9, which already addressed this (wrong) "possible nexus".
 
  • #14
PeterDonis said:
Maybe it seems that way to you, but the person who should be clarifying and explaining what the OP meant is the OP. @Dennis Plews please clarify what you meant, as has already been requested. Otherwise this thread will be deleted.
This is what I was asking:
[ATTACH type="full" alt="Demystifier"]339725[/ATTACH]

Demystifier






It's clear what the OP meant; "Higgs field creates mass" and "mass creates gravity", so there could be a relation between Higgs and gravity. Of course, both claims in quotation marks originate from oversimplified and misleading explanations in pop-sci literature. Neither claim is really true, and there is no relation.
 
  • #15
Dennis Plews said:
This is what I was asking
Your link is to Demystifier's PF user page, which contains nothing relevant to this discussion.
 
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FAQ: Higgs Field & GR: Are They Related or Not?

What is the Higgs Field?

The Higgs Field is a quantum field that is responsible for giving mass to elementary particles. It permeates all of space, and particles acquire mass through their interaction with this field. The associated particle, the Higgs boson, was discovered in 2012 at the Large Hadron Collider.

What is General Relativity (GR)?

General Relativity, formulated by Albert Einstein, is a theory of gravitation that describes gravity as a curvature of spacetime caused by mass and energy. It replaced Newton's law of universal gravitation and has been confirmed by numerous experiments and observations.

Are the Higgs Field and General Relativity directly related?

No, the Higgs Field and General Relativity are not directly related. The Higgs Field is a concept from particle physics and the Standard Model, which deals with the fundamental particles and their interactions. General Relativity, on the other hand, is a theory from the realm of classical physics that describes the gravitational interaction on a macroscopic scale.

Do the Higgs Field and General Relativity interact in any way?

While the Higgs Field and General Relativity are not directly related, they do interact in the sense that the mass generated by the Higgs Field contributes to the gravitational field described by General Relativity. In other words, the mass that particles acquire through the Higgs Field affects the curvature of spacetime.

Is there a unified theory that combines the Higgs Field and General Relativity?

As of now, there is no unified theory that seamlessly combines the Higgs Field and General Relativity. The Higgs Field is part of the Standard Model of particle physics, which does not include gravity, while General Relativity is a separate theory that describes gravity. Researchers are working on theories like quantum gravity and string theory to try to unify these two fundamental frameworks.

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