Control of the Higgs Field and the Production of Exotic Matter

[YNM]

Probably we should extract dark energy. Make things goes away (and in cosmology i've always see them as exerting negative pressure - pressure (F/A) is also energy density (E/V), hence negative energy density).

Out of topic : If Higgs field can alter mass, doesn't that means it have a direct connection to spacetime curvature ?

[Hannu]

The Higgs Field is accredited for giving objects mass. If this field could be controlled (similar to the way electromagnetic fields are controlled and harnessed) than in theory the mass of objects can be altered.

I am not a particle physicist but as far as I know interactions with Higgs field gives only a part of masses.

You can control electric field by moving electric charges. Fortunately there are materials which have charged particles and which are possible to manipulate. On the other hand, Higgs particles are extremely short lived and we do not know any material like source or container to them. And they need ridiculous amounts of energy to produce. I know that you should never say never, but there is no means of control Higgs field in foreseeable future. Not even in theoretical level. I think that you should consider theoretical career, if you decide to specialize to physics of Higgs field or exotic solutions of general relativistic equations.

[K^2]

(and in cosmology i've always see them as exerting negative pressure - pressure (F/A) is also energy density (E/V), hence negative energy density).

No. Both pressure and energy are diagonal elements of stress energy tensor, but they are distinct. Would not help with the warp drive.

[Bill Phil]

What about dark matter? Could it do something interesting?

[YNM]

Probably we should extract dark energy. Make things goes away (and in cosmology i've always see them as exerting negative pressure - pressure (F/A) is also energy density (E/V), hence negative energy density).

No. Both pressure and energy are diagonal elements of stress energy tensor, but they are distinct. Would not help with the warp drive.

Well, dark energy is included in EFE as the cosmological constant λ.

The value of lambda is made such as in the poisson equation (gravitational potential), which einstein views on the universe was that it must remain static, is set in a way such that the acceleration would be zero (hence why it has to exert negative pressure, not positive). Least are, dimensionally, energy density and pressure is the same thing. I'm not sure through... haven't fully understand tensors.

[helaeon]

If one could de-couple something from the Higgs Field you'd have the mass effect essentially. However, if it would obey the rules that it does in the game series. No idea.

World changing though. Nobel Prize for certain and cascade of cash for whoever figures it out, if its possible. Probably Nobel Prize for the person that proves it's not too, probably not cascade of cash though. But as has been stated already, no theory or even hypothesis that is sensible that I'm aware of on how one could do that.

I don't think it would be how one would make exotic matter for an Alcubierre drive. First it requires that exotic matter is a thing and there's no proof that it does exist, even though it's consistent with credible existing models of physics that have yet to be ruled out.

[K^2]

Well, dark energy is included in EFE as the cosmological constant λ.

That's a somewhat antiquated look on things. Cosmological constant was introduced rather artificially, and it only makes sense in geometrical interpretation of Gravity, which is outdated by half a century. Modern GR is derived as a gauge theory on Poincare symmetry. That's, essentially, where all the talk about Quantum Gravity comes from.

If you look at Gravity from perspective of gauge theory, all curvature must be consequence of stress energy density, because that is the conserved charge of the theory. As such, you cannot account for accelerated expansion by simply plugging in an extra term. There must be physical energy and pressure associated with it. Hence, the hunt for dark energy.

Of course, once we go back to the geometry of things, if we assume that dark energy is uniformly distributed across the universe, we could fold it back into cosmological constant. But that's just the way math works out.

Oh, and energy and pressure terms are completely different things. In a particular coordinate system, you can picture a rank 2 GR tensor as a 4x4 matrix. Energy is in the top left corner. Pressure are the 3 diagonal terms following it. As such, pressure isn't even a scalar quantity in GR.

[YNM]

Uh... Isn't Minkowski spacetime is euclidean (ie. Flat), while GR makes it non-euclidean ? (I mostly know these things from cosmology through, not from usual physics.)

Anyway, pressure shouldn't always be a scalar anyway. It certainly may have direction; Energy might not be scalar too anyway (only the subraction is).

Edited January 14, 2015 by YNM

[K^2]

Uh... Isn't Minkowski spacetime is euclidean (ie. Flat), while GR makes it non-euclidean ? (I mostly know these things from cosmology through, not from usual physics.)

Minkowski isn't Eucledian. Their metrics have different signatures. Both are flat, yes, but you shouldn't confuse the term "Eucledian" to simply mean "flat". The space-time of General Relativity is a Pseudo-Riemannian Manifold. That means that while it isn't necessarily flat, you can always take a small enough region of space that locally it behaves just like Minkowski space. This is why any principle that applies in Special Relativity globally must apply to General Relativity locally. Speed of light is a global limit in SR, but a local one in GR. Causality is globally enforced in SR, but only locally in GR. And so on.

[Duxwing]

I am. Most of the mass is dynamically generated. We'd still have massive matter even without the Higgs Field. Now, weak interactions would be quite different, because with massless W and Z bosons they'd have infinite range.

Ooh, could this infinity make them transmit information faster than light?

-Duxwing

[K^2]

Ooh, could this infinity make them transmit information faster than light?

No. Electromagnetic interactions already have infinite range because photons are already massless.

[Duxwing]

No. Electromagnetic interactions already have infinite range because photons are already massless.

Darn.

-Duxwing

[Iskierka]

The assumption made seems to be that exotic matter must possess negative mass. Just as E=MC^2, perhaps an equivalent may suffice; in this case, negative energy? The more learned among you may be able to shed some light on this. Edit: The gist of what I'm suggesting is that negative energy (exotic energy?) be used as a substitute for exotic matter.

I'm just going to quickly point out that your thought process here is incorrect, as E = mc^2 is not actually true. The actual energy equation is E^2 = m^2 c^4 + m^2 v^2 c^2; mass can be negative while maintaining positive energy, and vice versa, should either turn out to be possible. If they say requires negative mass, then negative mass is the requirement, its energy does not also have to be exotic.

[K^2]

I'm just going to quickly point out that your thought process here is incorrect, as E = mc^2 is not actually true. The actual energy equation is E^2 = m^2 c^4 + m^2 v^2 c^2; mass can be negative while maintaining positive energy, and vice versa, should either turn out to be possible. If they say requires negative mass, then negative mass is the requirement, its energy does not also have to be exotic.

Your equation isn't correct either. Momentum is given by p = γmv, where γ = 1/sqrt(1-v²/c²) is the Lorentz Factor.

[YNM]

@ K^2 : Now I know what you meant - the Riemannian Manifold can use any metric, no ? The reason why you said it to be minkowski metric (uh, spacetime) was to simplify it, no ? How'd the metric around black holes, or an alcubierre drive would be ?

Also, probably my own question, left open for anyone to answer : if Higgs field can give mass, and mass-energy causes spacetime to curve (and curvature tells mass-energy how to move), does Higgs field directly connected to spacetime curvature ?