The Higgs boson could have prevented the collapse of our cosmos

Alternatively, the end would have come in other regions of the multiverse.

Our cosmos may still expand if not for the Higgs boson, a mystery particle that gives other particles their mass. And a radically new notion claims its characteristics could be evidence that we do inhabit a multiverse of parallel worlds.

Under this scenario, only universes where the Higgs boson is relatively tiny would be stable. This is because different parts of the universe have different physical laws.

The strong force, which prevents atoms from collapsing, appears to follow certain symmetries, which could be explained if the new model, which involves the formation of new particles, is correct. Along the process, it might shed light on dark matter, and the mysterious substance thought to compose the bulk of the matter.

An exciting narrative involving two Higgs bosons

The discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 by the Large Hadron Collider, a particle accelerator buried under the French-Swiss border, was a breakthrough in particle physics. The Higgs boson is essential to the Standard Model because it differentiates the weak nuclear force from the electromagnetic force and gives other particles their mass.

Although the positive news was welcome, it was accompanied by some unfortunate developments. Mass-wise, the Higgs was a shockingly modest 125 GeV, a whole order of magnitude below what physicists had predicted.

It should be made clear that the Standard Model, the framework used by physicists to describe the menagerie of subatomic particles, does not predict the value of the Higgs mass. That number needs to be derived experimentally for that theory to make sense. However, researchers estimated that the Higgs would have a massive mass using only rough estimates. The question of why the Higgs has such a little mass loomed once the champagne had been popped and the Nobel prizes had been awarded.

Also, although unconnected at first glance, the vital force isn't functioning as expected by the Standard Model. Symmetries can be found in the mathematics used by physicists to describe interactions at very high energies. Some of these symmetries include charge symmetry (wherein switching the signs of all the electric charges in interaction has no effect), time symmetry (wherein running a reaction backwards has the same effect), and parity symmetry (wherein mirroring an interaction has the same effect).

All current investigations suggest that the strong force follows the mixed symmetry of charge reversal and parity reversal. But the strong force's math doesn't exhibit that same symmetry. Even though any known natural processes should not enforce this symmetry, it appears to be so. So what gives?

It's a multiverse thing.

The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission's (CEA) Raffaele Tito D'Agnolo and CERN's Daniele Teresi hypothesised a connection between these issues. They detailed their approach to solving the twin mysteries in a report published in January's issue of Physical Review Letters.

The universe, they concluded, was born with those characteristics.

They referred to the concept of the multiverse, derived from the theory of inflation. Inflation is the hypothesis that the universe's rate of expansion was so greatly accelerated immediately after the Big Bang that it doubled every billionth of a second.

One consequence of this basic theory is that the universe's expansion has never ceased. What fueled inflation or how it functioned is still a mystery to physicists. Instead, what we know as "our universe" is only a tiny part of a vaster cosmos that is expanding at an ever-increasing rate, bursting forth new universes like bubbles from a bath.

The Higgs mass will have varied values in the various parts of this "multiverse." According to the study, universes with a high Higgs mass are found to collapse catastrophically before they have a chance to expand. Galaxies, stars, planets, and eventually high-energy particle colliders can only form in sections of the multiverse with low Higgs masses because these regions have stable expansion rates.

The team had to add two extra particles to the mix to create a multiverse with different Higgs masses. The Standard Model would need to expand to account for these particles. The Higgs mass in various parts of the multiverse is determined by the interactions between these two new particles.

Additionally, the two novel particles have additional capabilities.

There must be a test now.

The charge-parity symmetry in nature is maintained thanks to the ways in which the new particles alter the strong force. They would behave similarly to the axion, and a hypothetical particle was proposed to explain the strong force.

The new particles aren't just interesting for their connection to the Big Bang. There's a chance they're still around in the modern universe. Perhaps one of them has a mass too minuscule to be detected by our accelerator experiments but is still out there in the universe.

In other words, dark matter, the invisible material that accounts for roughly 85% of all the matter in the universe, may be caused by one of these new particles.

Solving the two biggest problems in particle physics and explaining dark matter is an audacious proposal.

Is this the simplest solution possible? Despite its elegance, the hypothesis has not yet been tested. Future experiments looking for dark matter, such as the underground facility of the Super Cryogenic Dark Matter Search, may be able to confirm the model's predicted mass range for the dark matter. Different from the Standard Model's expectations, this theory suggests that the neutron should have a slight but noticeable asymmetry in its electric charges.

We'll have to wait for a bit, unfortunately. It will take years, if not decades, for any of these tests to definitively disprove or prove the new theory.

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