Connecting the fate of the universe to the Higgs boson
The topic of today concerns the lifetime of the universe and how it could be calculated in the context of the Standard Model of particle physics (the theory that describes how all elementary particles behave).
[image credits: pixabay]
Everyday, one of the first thing I do (after coffee) is to browse the scientific articles connected to my field that appeared during the night (we have a dedicated website for this). I often found one or two interesting papers that may be worthy to read.
And sometimes, I report on this blog one of these interesting topics. The article of today falls in this category.
A HIGGS BOSON INTERACTING WITH ITSELF
Before starting, let me recall some basic facts about the Higgs boson.
[image credits: the particle zoo]
One of the key parameters of the Standard Model is the strength of the interaction of the Higgs boson with itself (you know, the guy from the plush on the right).
Yep, the Higgs boson not only interacts with all the elementary particles, but also with itself (and we can even have four of them involved).
Although this parameter could be calculated using the theory, it is important to double check that the predicted value matches the measurements. This ensures that we do not have any fancy new phenomenon.
However, the LHC will only be able to get a rough idea of the magnitude of the Higgs boson self-interactions. Even with all the data to be collected during the next 20 years! Equivalently, measurements will not be able to rule out possibly large deviations from the Standard Model value for the next 20 years!
But why is this important for the lifetime of the universe? We will see below!
QUANTUM TUNNELING
Still before starting, I will take 1 minute to discuss one important concept: quantum tunneling.
[image credits: pixabay]
To understand how this works, let us imagine a wall, and a tennis ball that one throws towards it. What can happen next? Well, the tennis ball will hit the wall, and bounce back. We can try a second time, no change. And again. And one billion times later… again.
Now, the microscopic world is governed by quantum mechanics and not classical mechanics. Without entering computational details, the probability that our microscopic quantum tennis ball does not bounce back, but goes through the wall,… is non-zero!
In fact, if we forget the analogy, a particle can pass (or tunnel, as currently said) through a potential barrier although at the classical level, this would not be possible.
This may sound weird. However, this is well studied and understood both theoretically and experimentally. There are even practical applications of quantum tunneling, like the tunneling microscope.
Now, time to go back to the topic.
TUNNELING BETWEEN POTENTIAL MINIMA? [harder part of the post]
What a title, isn’t it? There is a third and last important concept to introduce.
Without using too many complex words, the fate of the universe is connected to the potential of the Higgs boson, or the equation describing the dynamics (propagation, mass, interactions) of the Higgs boson.
In classical mechanics, we have potentials, and what is going on is related to the fact that one lies in the minimum of the potential. In the Standard Model, it is the same thing: we live in a minimum of the Higgs potential.
A potential may however have several minima, which is the (not so) funny part: the universe could catastrophically tunnel out of the current minimum in which it lies to another one that is more stable! Equivalently, the universe could cataclysmically collapse!
And now you get to the point: in order to calculate the lifetime of the universe, it is enough to calculate when and whether this tunneling occurs.
The only complication is that the calculation must be performed in the quantum field theory context, i.e., where we add field theory and special relativity on top of quantum mechanics.
Such a computation was so hard that no one succeeded… until now. The breakthrough of the paper I am talking about is that the authors managed to do this calculation exactly for the first time, handling all issues and unsolved challenge (with the proofs)!
This calculation in particular includes the properties of all the elementary particles, of course, like the self-interactions of the Higgs boson above-mentioned.
RESULTS: CONNECTING THE UNIVERSE FATE TO THE HIGGS BOSON
I will skip any technical detail (if you want them, please read the 70-pages long paper) and go straight to the results.
The authors calculated that the lifetime of the universe is between 1088 years and 10241 years. The huge uncertainty is due to a couple of parameters of the Standard Model that are not measured precisely enough and to some uncertainties inherent to the calculation.
[image credits: pixabay]
Funnily enough, they have additionally found that the way in which the Higgs boson interacts with itself is crucial. Yes, the parameter that has not been measured yet!
A modification of the magnitude of the Higgs boson self-interactions of 40% corresponds to changing the relevant parameter from -0.1 to -0.138. You may say, who cares, this is a small number anyhow.
Well, the universe cares a lot: it would have disappeared in 0.00000000000000000001 second after the big bang!
TAKE-HOME MESSAGE AND REFERENCES
In this post, I have described a scientific article that I have recently read. This article addresses the fate of the universe and the time it would need to collapse.
Three researchers have managed to perform the associated calculation in the Standard Model, and they have found that it is very long. In short, we are fine, except if the Standard Model is not the end of the story. In this case, we may or may not be fine.
A striking example of a drastic reduction of the universe lifetime is when the interactions of the Higgs boson is modified. This could have led to the destruction of the universe in no time!
More information can be found in the scientific article available for free from the arxiv. If you are interested by quantum tunelling, I can recommend the associated Wikipedia page that is very good.
Do not hesitate to ask questions in the comments!
For more discussion on this topic (or anything related to science), please join us on #steemSTEM. The steemSTEM project is a community-supported project aiming to increase the quality and the visibility of STEM (STEM is the acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) articles on Steemit.
More information on our actions are available here. You can also follow our curation trail on Streemian to support us.
Well... I wasn't aware of such uncertainty. The heat-death of the universe seems inevitable, but the understanding of the role of gravity and the Higgs Boson in the big picture (and its role in the fate of the universe) will be something would love to witness in my lifetime.
I love the way you explain difficult topics in a simple way. Followed, can't wait for the next post!
Thanks a lot for your nice message. Actually there is a very important hypothesis behind the calculation: the Standard Model is the theory describing the elementary particle world. We have strong signs this is not the end of the story. And then, the only way would be to redo the calculation in the other theoretical context. But we are not there yet ;)
PS: they have not included gravity in the calculation (gravity is not described in the Standard Model). This is part of the assumptions :)
You are right, in fact when I said "the big picture" I was referring to the "micro" AND the macro world. I'm aware that the standard model, by itself, does not include or explain the general relativity explanation of gravity, the baryon asymmetry, the expansion of the universe, dark energy, (you add what I don't remember)... But it is showing to be a useful tool for describing reality. I'm not waiting for the famous "Theory of everything", as it sounds unreasonable with our current tools, but it would be exciting to have a satisfying explanation of how these two extremely different world can coexist :-)
Many (including me by the way) are actually working on that. For instance, tackling the dark matter stuff in particular.
Wow, I've talked just once to a small team of physicists who were working on dark matter while i was working on a portion of code for their simulation. There I understood how little I know about the math you use... You guys are simply amazing, I think I'm not exaggerating when saying that you are doing one of the most difficult job of the world.
May I ask you what is the current subject of your research?
Many things actually. Let's try to summarize.
I study new phenomena in particle physics, where you replace the Standard Model by a more general context. I am interested in many things, like supersymmetry (you may have heard the name, otherwise you can possibly see here), vector like quarks (new quarks), new phenomena connected to the Higgs, new phenomena connected to the top quark, dark matter at colliders and in the universe, etc...
I also compute precision calculations that would allow precise measurements in the case of a new discovery, or precise limits in the case of a non-discovery (quantum chromodynamics in fact).
I also take part to the development of simulation software connected to the physics at the LHC (starting to move on the machine learning side), and I am involved in the studies that will lead to decide which collider experiment may be the next one in 20-30 years.
I think I got everything. Just ask questions about anything, I would be more than happy to answer :)
Oh man, you are offering candies, chocolate bars and ice cream to fat kid!
So, since we have no hard evidence of supersymmetry, how much a successful experiment (ex. supersymmetric particles detected by the LHC) will impact the direction of your work and what would be the fate of the standard model?
Moreover, I'm pretty familiar with Machine Learing, since it is vastly related to my current job, how is it used by LHC physicists?
P.S. Sorry if I'm asking too many things, if i had the opportunity i would ask even more, but it would take hours of conversation. Anyway thanks for your time :-)
Well, for the moment, as you can guess, I am open since we have not a single hint of anything. Let's assume we see something. Showing that this something is supersymmetric is already a huge task on its own. It is more likely that we may conclude that the something is supersymmetry, or theory B, or theory C or ...
Take the infamous 750 GeV excess of 2 years ago. There were more than 400 theory papers explaining the excess... In any case, if there is an excess and if I agree this may be something new (and not background fluctuations), I will start moving forward to try to get what it could be and how to get more information.
In fact, there is a long path behind us before we could claim about something new. But my research will definitely partly move along that path. And the Standard Model will still be an active field of research. The reason is that whatever is the new theory, it must give back the Standard Model in the low energy limit. The Standard Model will just be extended, but the lower energy predictions may not really change.
This is becoming more and more used (I am myself learning it at the moment). It is current used for object reconstruction (getting what we see in a detector), analysis better design, scan of huge parameter spaces and more.
Wait - so does this research assert that a cataclysmic tunnelling of the entire universe is inevitable? It seems like the question they're asking isn't will it happen - but when.
Assuming the Standard Model (very strong assomption) and the measurements we have so far, the universe seems to be metasable. Therefore, it makes sense to calculate its lifetime. If we have new physics, now the techniques to redo the calculation in another theoretical framework are there :)
Well, that's sort of uplifting somehow. I remember in high school I read a book about the potential ends of the universe, and metastability didn't come up. Instead they said eventually, everything reactive will react with everything else until the whole universe reaches a kind of energetic homeostasis: which would manifest as an infinite expanse filled with light-year long blocks of iron - forever.
Actually, I used to read that book in the library instead of going to lunch... I was a strange kid.
The results are in fact there. You can check that we are very close to the stable/metastable frontier, but on the metastable side. You can find the figure in this paper, page 18.
You book seems... let's say old ;)
It was probably 20 years old when I read it, maybe 14 years ago. And anything but comprehensive - more pop-science. It was a weird book really.
The universe ,galaxy, star, solar system ,planets ,humans,etc ,will never die in fact all will transforme .
Let me teal you guys a real joke about mathematics and calculation :
One man digging a hole in 1 minute, 60 mans digging a hole in 1 second !!!
It's posible?
Mathematics we can apply only for couple things and only in our life day to day.
What i belive it's our Mathematics will not work for universe calculation !!!
I disagree with you.
I think you are mixing mathematics with physics. Physics applies to a vast variety of phenomena. Mathematics is the tool. Each theory in physics (physics is vast) describes a given domain of applications for which it describes all possible experimental observations that have been done and that will be done. If this is not the case, the theory will have to be revised. For the moment, there is no proof that the current paradigms do not work (otherwise, please show them to me).
Now, this post concerns a calculation with some physics hypotheses, a proof, and a result. In this context, the calculation performed looks totally correct to me. You cannot say it is wrong without proving it. Science is not a matter of beliefs :)
Physics use most of the mathematic . In mathematics, you can calculate the amounts of phenomens to calculate the values of certain
parameters: pressure, force, elasticity, electrical current intensity. All laws call for both demonstration and determination in the trigonometry analysis and algebra formulas. To calculate the force of Sliding on a tilted plane, call the sin cos tg ctg functions. At units of measurement you must know how to transform them (here comes the algebra).
In other laws, when calculating the intensity of a current on certain portions, apply the integral from n to m where n and m represent the ends of the studied segment. Sub between you have the characteristic law. Maths it's all most everywhere in our life
You can not apply physics in something where you don't know nothing about it!!!
Theory with out fundament! !!!
Mathematics is a tool. You are really mixing maths and physics. The purpose of maths is not to explain the phenomena happening in the real world. Physics, on the other hand, yes.
To come back to your other point, we have theories that govern what we observe. Theories are not dreams. They are mathematical structures precisely explaining the ensemble of all experimental facts of a given domain. They can be used to make predictions and are thus testable. Once again, as you can see, mathematics is a tool.
The purpose of this post is to use a theory we know (the Standard Model of particle physics) and that is super well tested to make a prediction: the age of the universe. It is just wrong to say the calculation is meaningless. It is in contrast very well defined.
Only theory. After couple of years some one will come with different theory and that one will fail under new one!!! Like all the time heaped, we don't know how human body works in 2017 ,and they tell us how the Universe work!!!
No, this is where you are not correct. The current theory is in agreement with all current data. If you want to replace it by something else, the new theory must be as good. And since the current theory works well, the new theory must be equivalent to the current one in some limits. It is like using special relativity to solve a classical mechanics problem: you can do it, but there is no point of it as the answer would be the same as using classical mechanics from the start.
We don't know how the universe works in all details, but we have significant clue about many things. These clues lead to the current paradigm, based on a very restricted set of key principle, which is in agreement with hundred of years of data. Therefore, the current paradigm cannot be totally wrong, at least under limits for which all current and past experiments hold.
What if we are not the ones solving anything, could it be so that whoever created this world just gives us a little extra info to work with to keep us busy and entertained?
The complexity with which quantum physics seems to work, the fact that matter springs into existence and becomes available when conciously observed, could well mean we are not meant to grasp what is going on.
ie. it could be very likely that we are not going to figure it out, in the meantime I suggest there is no rush trying to figure it out either.
Perhaps we should focus our community money towards helping other people instead of spending billions on higgs boson particles.
We can compare ourselves to the little bacteria living in our stomach, they know what they are supposed to be doing in their environment and dimension, but have no clue what is going on outside of their area of responsibility, they are just performing a task which they can reasonably do with the tools they have been given. In the meantime they probably know there is more to life then keeping the body in balance. Yet that is their primary task so they understand that is what is required of them,
We are perhaps more advanced but nowhere near figuring out how and why the world exists. The fact is that since matter can have different forms, it is not unlikely to think that new matter get's introduced in the system? Forever keeping us guessing.
So either it is all a coincedence that apart from the fact that the planets, atmosphere etc. etc. allow for life on earth, that
we feel pain/ happiness and sorrow arguably due to the way our brains have evolved to survive over the years.
The fact that our conscious seems to influence the result of quantum measurements, directly relating our conscious with matter that comes into existence.
The fact that it is a little strange that we can move ourselves through time and space whilst creating new memories and experiences. Perhaps all of that was just a massive coincedence, created by a big bang.........
Or perhaps it is more likely something has put this world together in such complex manner that it clearly doesn't want us to know all the answers, because if it did we would have already known.
In the meantime in our short existence on earth, we feel the pressing need to figure it all out, but what at costs and to what endgoal?
Now I am not against progress but shouldn't we make sure money that goes into these projects is balanced against solving other mysteries and issues on this planet.
Like why we prefer to spent billions on technology that will help us minute steps further in trying to not figure out how the world works versus making sure a kid that suffers from femine get's to have some food tomorrow.
I saw an invention a while ago that created water out of desert air, why on earth does this man not get billions to get his product mass produced?
I know we don't live in a perfect world, but can we really justify the amount of money spent on these projects versus the other issues humanity faces?
I think your comment is related to the LHC. If not please correct me.
Understanding how the universe works has a cost. That is true. And the money could be invested otherwise, that is true too. However, being against fundamental research means being against progress. Fundamental research in the 1910s means the GPS system today, to quote a single example. However, let's compute numbers differently.
We are first talking here about a very small amount of money (taking the number of countries investing in it, and the amount of money this is for each country). Secondly, the return on the investment is larger than the investment itself (the money to be spent to run those machines is given back to the society, the salary of the people involved when they move to something else, etc..., we can do the cost-benefit analysis and check by ourselves). The only point I want to mention is that on top of science itself, running those huge experiments is cheap for the society and the return could be huge in terms of a potential discovery. Okay maybe not today, but maybe in 100 years.
I once saw a video describing a similar thing, perhaps this exact thing and I wonder if it will happen everywhere in an instant, or expand in the speed of light, in this case there will have to be infinite or at least plenty of such collapses in order to end the universe as we know it everywhere.
I have actually no idea on how this may happen. Physics will just become totally different in one instant so that all structures in the universe will be destroyed instantaneously.
This comment has received a 4.55 % upvote from @nettybot thanks to: @stimialiti.
Send 0.100 SBD to @nettybot with a post link in the memo field to bid on the next vote.
Oh, and be sure to vote for my owner, @netuoso, as Steem Witness
Have a great day!
Great topic to discuss, I've always loved Tunneling and for those who are interested, the Finite and Infinite particle in a box solutions/methodologies are integral to the understanding of how the probability distributions are affected by boundary conditions. Wikipedia has a pretty good animation of an electron wavepacket hitting a boundary:
Very cool animation. I never noticed it on the wikipedia page :)
I didn;t say it. Physicists don't like this term. :)
Seriously? because they don't have religions? XDD
The original title of the book was 'A Goddamn Particle'. The editor insisted heavily to change it... and it was changed unfortunately. The title stayed :(
yeah, that's why i posted it... little joke (-:
A nice one that can actually only be understood by those who know the story :)
meep
Meep?
meep
Aaaaah: meeep :)
meep
Meep?!
Very interesting article teories...its really way to know more..
Thanks!
do u think we were created by aliens ? me yes
Me no. There is a something called evolution. I think this is how we appeared!
Aliens? Create humans? Oh heavens no. Silly mortals thinking they are so important.
100% we are a colony or a experiment with several race with different creator or the same one!!!
great writing, first thing I do after I wake up is steemit :) upvoted !!
if possible visit my post too thanks :)
https://steemit.com/photography/@applesspatrick/some-of-the-pictures-that-will-make-you-think-twice-about-the-secret-of-north-korea
great post please visit my page and support me thanks alot