Is the Higgs boson the Standard Model Higgs?

The Higgs boson is a key particle within the Standard Model, the theory that describes the known elementary particles and the ways they interact.

What is a supersymmetric theory?

Supersymmetry is an extension of the Standard Model that aims to fill some of the gaps. It predicts a partner particle for each particle in the Standard Model. Theorists have come up with a mechanism to give particles masses that requires the existence of a new particle, the Higgs boson.

What is the difference between boson and Higgs boson?

The difference manifests in the statistical properties of the many particle system. Field quanta, for instance, obey what is called Bose-Einstein Statistics and are collectively called ‘Bosons’. In general we hear less about bosons. There is the Higgs boson which gives mass to particles like protons and neutrons.

How does supersymmetry affect the Higgs boson mass?

The extra particles predicted by supersymmetry would cancel out the contributions to the Higgs mass from their Standard-Model partners, making a light Higgs boson possible. The new particles would interact through the same forces as Standard-Model particles, but they would have different masses.

Is the Higgs boson unstable to the standard model?

The Higgs boson mass of the Standard Model is unstable to quantum corrections and the theory predicts that weak scale should be much weaker than what is observed to be. In the MSSM, the Higgs boson has a fermionic superpartner, the Higgsino, that has the same mass as it would if supersymmetry were an exact symmetry.

Why does the Higgs boson have a fermion superpartner?

In the MSSM, the Higgs boson has a fermionic superpartner, the Higgsino, that has the same mass as it would if supersymmetry were an exact symmetry. Because fermion masses are radiatively stable, the Higgs mass inherits this stability. However, in MSSM there is a need for more than one Higgs field, as described below .

How are bosons and fermions related in supersymmetry?

Supersymmetry would also link the two different classes of particles known as fermions and bosons. Particles like those in the Standard Model are classified as fermions or bosons based on a property known as spin. Fermions all have half of a unit of spin, while the bosons have 0, 1 or 2 units of spin.