文章摘自qbitai.com。量子位网站

希格斯玻色子为何如此重要，科学家为什么能凭它问鼎诺贝尔物理奖？

要回答这个问题，不妨先来了解一下量子世界和粒子之间是如何相互作用的。

在希格斯首次提出希格斯玻色子的1964年，当时物理学家们都致力于用一种叫作量子场论 （Quantum Field Theory, QFT）的理论框架来描述弱力。

彼时，量子场论已形成了量子电磁学的基础，是一个对电磁相互作用非常成功的描述。

然而，由于一个基本问题，将量子场论应用于弱相互作用是不可能的：该理论不允许粒子有质量。

具体来说，就是W和Z玻色子的弱力载体必须是无质量的，否则就会打破量子场论的一个基本对称性，导致该理论失效。

这就造成了一个Bug——因为弱力载体必须有质量，才能与弱相互作用的极短范围一致。

而希格斯机制找到了解决这个问题的办法。

希格斯机制，可以简单描述为：

当宇宙诞生时，希格斯场充满了不稳定但处于对称状态的粒子。

在大爆炸后不到一秒，该场出现了一种稳定的配置，但它打破了最初的对称性。

在这种配置中，理论方程仍然是对称的，但希格斯场的破缺对称性产生了W和Z玻色子的质量。

此外，后来的研究发现，其他基本粒子也能通过与希格斯场的相互作用获得质量。

希格斯玻色子，就是希格斯场的一种基本粒子，它不带电荷、色荷，极不稳定，生成后会立刻衰变。

Why is the Higgs boson so important, and why can scientists win the Nobel Prize in Physics with it?

To answer this question, let’s first understand how the quantum world and particles interact.

In 1964, when Higgs first proposed the Higgs boson, physicists were working to describe the weak force using a theoretical framework called Quantum Field Theory (QFT).

At that time, quantum field theory had formed the basis of quantum electromagnetism, a very successful description of electromagnetic interactions.

However, applying quantum field theory to weak interactions is impossible due to a fundamental problem: the theory does not allow particles to have mass.

Specifically, the weak force carriers of the W and Z bosons must be massless, otherwise a fundamental symmetry of quantum field theory will be broken, rendering the theory invalid.

This creates a bug - because the weak force carrier must have mass to be consistent with the extremely short range of the weak interaction.

And the Higgs mechanism found a solution to this problem.

The Higgs mechanism can be simply described as:

When the universe was born, the Higgs field was filled with unstable but symmetrical particles.

Less than a second after the Big Bang, a stable configuration emerged for the field, but it broke the original symmetry.

In this configuration, the theoretical equations are still symmetric, but the broken symmetry of the Higgs field produces the masses of the W and Z bosons.

In addition, later research found that other elementary particles can also gain mass by interacting with the Higgs field.

The Higgs boson is a fundamental particle of the Higgs field. It has no charge or color charge, and is extremely unstable. It will decay immediately after being generated. width