Physics nerds: Higgs boson found?

[KrazyHorse]

Errr....yeah.

That's the point. The SM only predicts one more part. The scalar Higgs.

Anything else is by definition either an extension of the SM (there's a scalar Higgs plus other stuff) or a rejection of the SM (there's no scalar Higgs but there is other stuff)

You might think that there is one last possibility (no scalar Higgs, nothing else either) but without some sort of new physics, SM breaks down at energies < 1TeV

[Jon Miller]

Besides really not making sense with no scalar Higgs.

JM
(at least to me)

[Dinner]

Does anyone know the answer to my neutron star question?

[KrazyHorse]

A neutron star with a sufficiently tightly packed core will force quarks into such proximity that the general description of most matter as consisting of interacting hadrons breaks down.

Think of protons and neutrons as blobs of putty consisting of three different types (red, blue, green). Normally, the residual strong force between two blobs of putty (aka the nuclear force) leaves each blob separate and distinguishable. When you put enough blobs of putty close enough together, however, it becomes impossible to tell which blob a given piece of red stuff belongs to. It's like a floating sea of individual red green and blue blobs. The description of everything as being a red+blue+green breaks down.

Or think of it as a mist of water. As long as the mist is thin enough, the individual drops are pretty well distinguishable. If you compress all that mist together it turns into a pool of water. You go from having a bunch of interacting drops (each drop is a bunch of molecules who hang out together for a very long time without changing partners) to a bunch of interacting molecules which are not particularly tied to anybody else.

[bipolarbear]

/\

That is really cool.

[Dinner]

That makes sense though there is one other thing. I have read that hybrid stars can exhibit a loss of mass under certain conditions, specifically cold circumstellar shells, how does this occur. My understanding is that mass is mass no matter how tightly you pack it so the tremendous gravity of a neutron star can result in matter being incredibly tightly packed but the over all mass should not change. You can squeeze that matter into ever tighter spaces increasing its density but the total mass should remain relatively constant unless it is getting blown off or something. I realize that this is more of a physics question but that it does have some tie in with planetary geology so I'm interested in how this occurs or if my current understanding is flawed.

[Krill]

E=MC^2...

Mass is mass is energy.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Krill
KH'll say you don't have the requisite knowledge to understand

I freely admit I'm not a physicist though I am a physical scientist, specifically a geologist, I'm not fluent in the language or abbreviations of theoretical physics much less small partial physics but I do have a broader physics background then the average bear. I like to think that as a scientist I also know more math then most people.

[Krill]

Heh, you still have more math than me as a first year chemist....

[Drake Tungsten]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
This signal cannot be SM Higgs.

I concur.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Oerdin
That makes sense though there is one other thing. I have read that hybrid stars can exhibit a loss of mass under certain conditions, specifically cold circumstellar shells, how does this occur. My understanding is that mass is mass no matter how tightly you pack it so the tremendous gravity of a neutron star can result in matter being incredibly tightly packed but the over all mass should not change

I have no idea about the actual mechanics of it, but to lose "mass" the star has to radiate (either by spitting out light or some other form of energy/mass)

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
This signal cannot be SM Higgs.

I concur.

Thank you, Dr. Tungsten.

[Drake Tungsten]

You're very welcome.

[Kuciwalker]

I didn't really trust what KH was saying until Drake came and confirmed it.

[KrazyHorse]

HAAAHAAAHAAAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I just figured out why what I've been doing for the last 3 months is the hardest possible case. The pseudoscalar mass was way too high. **** it. I'll draw a line at 40 GeV and say that anything above that will be invisible. It'll still be a major paper. *****ES.