Higgs field

The Higgs field is a quantum field with a nonzero vacuum value throughout space. Its interactions with elementary particles contribute to their masses, while its excitation appears as the Higgs boson.

Electroweak symmetry breaking: The transition in which the Higgs field’s nonzero vacuum value leaves electroweak symmetry hidden in the vacuum. This is how the field’s vacuum state distinguishes the weak and electromagnetic interactions.
Quantum field theory: A framework describing particles as quantized excitations of fields that extend through space and time. The Higgs field is one field within this framework.
Brout–Englert–Higgs mechanism: The 1964 proposal that a gauge theory can contain massive vector bosons while retaining its underlying gauge structure. It provided the theoretical mechanism associated with the Higgs field.
QCD: The theory of the strong interaction among quarks and gluons. Most of a proton’s mass comes from strong-interaction energy, not directly from Higgs-generated quark masses.
Higgs mechanism: A process by which gauge bosons acquire mass through interactions with a field whose vacuum value breaks a symmetry. It describes how the Higgs field gives mass to the W and Z bosons.
Standard Model: The quantum field theory describing known elementary particles and three of the four fundamental interactions. The Higgs field is the Standard Model’s scalar field.
François Englert: A Belgian theoretical physicist who co-authored a 1964 paper on spontaneous symmetry breaking in gauge theories. His work helped establish the mechanism that entails the Higgs field.
Technicolor: A class of proposed theories in which a new strong interaction breaks electroweak symmetry without an elementary Higgs field. It offers an alternative to the Higgs field’s role in electroweak symmetry breaking.
Yukawa interaction: An interaction coupling fermion fields to a scalar field, producing fermion masses when that field has a nonzero vacuum value. These couplings set the masses of quarks and charged leptons through the Higgs field.
Scalar field: A field assigning a single value to every point in space and time. The Higgs field is the Standard Model’s scalar field, unlike its vector gauge fields.

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