The Higgs mass of 126 GeV is not huge compared to the masses of the W and Z (80 and 90 GeV) which mediate the weak force. As a "fifth force" the Higgs boson could mediate for example between fermion-antifermion pairs or gauge boson pairs, but these particles are extremely short-lived -- with the exception of electrons and muons, and for those cases the coupling constant is extremely small.tom.stoer said:In some general sense - yes. The effect of this force (in addition to the creation of particle masses) is tiny due to the huge Higgs mass.
kurros said:It is quite different from the "other forces" on account of being spin zero instead of one. But yeah, no-one talks about forces like this in particle physics unless they are giving a seminar for a general audience. Especially when you throw in things like supersymmetry, which cause the categorisation to become even more meaningless.
dauto said:gravity is also different being a spin 2 instead of one. The original post has a point. The Higgs interaction could be considered a 5th force. What makes the Higgs interaction different is the fact that - unlike the other forces - it is not related to a gauge local symmetry and doesn't have any conserved charges associated with it.
The Higgs Field is a fundamental field that permeates throughout the universe and is responsible for giving particles their mass. It was first proposed by Peter Higgs in the 1960s and was later confirmed by experiments at the Large Hadron Collider. However, it is not considered a fifth fundamental force because it does not directly interact with particles in the same way as the four fundamental forces (gravity, electromagnetism, strong and weak nuclear forces) do.
The term "God particle" was first coined by physicist Leon Lederman in his book, "The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What is the Question?" The name was meant to be a playful way of referring to the elusive nature of the Higgs Field and its importance in our understanding of the universe. However, many scientists and scholars find the term to be misleading and prefer to use the term "Higgs boson" or "Higgs mechanism" instead.
The Higgs Field interacts with particles through the Higgs mechanism, which involves a process known as spontaneous symmetry breaking. In this process, particles gain mass by interacting with the Higgs Field, which slows them down and gives them mass. Without this interaction, particles would be massless and the universe as we know it would not exist.
Some theories have proposed that the Higgs Field could be explained by a fifth fundamental force. However, these theories have not been supported by experimental evidence and are not widely accepted by the scientific community. The current understanding is that the Higgs Field is a fundamental field that is distinct from the four known fundamental forces.
The fact that the Higgs Field is not considered a fifth fundamental force has important implications for our understanding of the universe. It helps to explain why the four fundamental forces have such different strengths and why gravity is significantly weaker than the other forces. It also supports the concept of unification, which suggests that all the fundamental forces were once unified into a single force in the early universe.