Here’s my argument against Higgs boson(s) showing up:
The Higgs boson was just the first good idea we had about how to generate mass. Theory does not say anything about how massive the Higgs itself it is, just that there is an upper bound. The years have passed, it hasn’t shown up, and the LHC will finally take us into the last remaining region of parameter space. So Higgs believers say “hallelujah, the Higgs will finally show up”. But a Higgs skeptic just says this is the end of the line. It’s just one idea, it hasn’t been confirmed so far, why would we expect it to be confirmed at the last possible chance?
Nima Arkani-Hamed of Harvard said he would bet a year’s salary on the Higgs. “If the Higgs or something like it doesn’t exist,” he said, “then some very basic things like quantum mechanics are wrong.”
I wrote to him at the time expressing interest in the bet, but asking for more details. (No reply.) The rather bold statement that QM itself implies a Higgs “or something like it” I think must be a reference to the breakdown in unitarity of the Standard Model that should occur at 1 TeV—which implies that the Standard Model is incomplete, so something will show up. But does it have to be a new scalar boson? There are Higgsless models of mass generation in string theory.
This all leads me to think anew about what’s going to happen. The LHC will collide protons and detectors will pick up some of the shrapnel. I think no-one expects new types of particle to be detected directly. They are expected to be heavy and to decay quickly into known particles; the evidence of their existence will be in the shrapnel.
The Standard Model makes predictions about the distribution of shrapnel, but breaks down at 1 TeV. So one may predict that what will be observed is a deviation in shrapnel distributions from SM predictions and that is all. Can we infer from this, and from the existing range of physics models, what the likely developments in theory are going to be, even before the experiment is performed?
Although I said that totally new particles will not be observed directly, my understanding is that the next best thing is certainly possible, namely a very sharp and unanticipated change in the distribution of decay products at a specific energy. That would mean that you had a new particle at that energy.
The alternative would seem to be a sort of gentle deviation of decay statistics away from SM predictions. Unfortunately I don’t know enough about the theoretical options to really predict how this might be interpreted. However, the Higgsless models involve extra dimensions. So if we have the dull outcome, it will probably be interpreted by some as our first evidence of extra dimensions.
Also, particle physics is very complex and there are many possible mechanisms of interaction. I think that, if no Higgs shows up, many theorists will go back to their theorems and question the assumptions which tell us that this is the last chance for a Higgs to show up.
My prediction, then, is that if we get the dull outcome—no unambiguous signal of a new particle—we will see both even more interest in extra dimensions, and a new generation of “heavy Higgs” models which explain why we can, after all, have a heavier-than-1-TeV Higgs without screwing up observed low-energy physics.
I’ve just learned that Stephen Hawking has bet against the Higgs showing up.
Here’s my argument against Higgs boson(s) showing up:
The Higgs boson was just the first good idea we had about how to generate mass. Theory does not say anything about how massive the Higgs itself it is, just that there is an upper bound. The years have passed, it hasn’t shown up, and the LHC will finally take us into the last remaining region of parameter space. So Higgs believers say “hallelujah, the Higgs will finally show up”. But a Higgs skeptic just says this is the end of the line. It’s just one idea, it hasn’t been confirmed so far, why would we expect it to be confirmed at the last possible chance?
Two years ago:
I wrote to him at the time expressing interest in the bet, but asking for more details. (No reply.) The rather bold statement that QM itself implies a Higgs “or something like it” I think must be a reference to the breakdown in unitarity of the Standard Model that should occur at 1 TeV—which implies that the Standard Model is incomplete, so something will show up. But does it have to be a new scalar boson? There are Higgsless models of mass generation in string theory.
This all leads me to think anew about what’s going to happen. The LHC will collide protons and detectors will pick up some of the shrapnel. I think no-one expects new types of particle to be detected directly. They are expected to be heavy and to decay quickly into known particles; the evidence of their existence will be in the shrapnel.
The Standard Model makes predictions about the distribution of shrapnel, but breaks down at 1 TeV. So one may predict that what will be observed is a deviation in shrapnel distributions from SM predictions and that is all. Can we infer from this, and from the existing range of physics models, what the likely developments in theory are going to be, even before the experiment is performed?
Although I said that totally new particles will not be observed directly, my understanding is that the next best thing is certainly possible, namely a very sharp and unanticipated change in the distribution of decay products at a specific energy. That would mean that you had a new particle at that energy.
The alternative would seem to be a sort of gentle deviation of decay statistics away from SM predictions. Unfortunately I don’t know enough about the theoretical options to really predict how this might be interpreted. However, the Higgsless models involve extra dimensions. So if we have the dull outcome, it will probably be interpreted by some as our first evidence of extra dimensions.
Also, particle physics is very complex and there are many possible mechanisms of interaction. I think that, if no Higgs shows up, many theorists will go back to their theorems and question the assumptions which tell us that this is the last chance for a Higgs to show up.
My prediction, then, is that if we get the dull outcome—no unambiguous signal of a new particle—we will see both even more interest in extra dimensions, and a new generation of “heavy Higgs” models which explain why we can, after all, have a heavier-than-1-TeV Higgs without screwing up observed low-energy physics.