The Higgs boson seems to be a particule difficult to detect (elusive particle), in this context does the uncertainty principle apply as well as it applies to other less elusive particles? More generally, the uncertainty principle gives a lower limit for the product of 2 physical values, but could this limit be more precisely calculated taking into account the fact that the particle interacts more or less easily with other particles?
Dear Fabrice,
Interaction is not essential for validity of uncertainty principle as we understand it in the standard way. It is a basic fact of nature and applies equally well to all particles including Higgs.
Regards,
Rajat
Dear Fabrice,
Interaction is not essential for validity of uncertainty principle as we understand it in the standard way. It is a basic fact of nature and applies equally well to all particles including Higgs.
Regards,
Rajat
Hi,
Actually Heisenberg principle talks about fundamental commutation of 2 different observables like momentum + position OR energy + time. It says that " there are no states which simultaneously have a definite position and momentum", which is expressed at AB is not equal to BA, where A is matrix of states of one observable and B is matrix of states of second observable. Furthermore |AB - BA| >= h/2PI. The heisenberg principle works for any "system" and the "system" can be a single particle or many particles or even a combination of particles and waves/fields.
So as a result it works for Higgs Bosons.
Thank you for these answers. Is the constant (the right side of the < sign) always equal to h/2pi ?
@Fabrice Auzanneau
The constant of h/2pi is the original bound provided by Heisenberg. Meanwhile, lots of research has been done into what's now called "Uncertainty relations", i.e., getting better bounds for relations between incompatible observables (the field was somewhat re-born after Deutsch came up with a better bound). Most of these novel uncertainty relations are not in terms of commutators anymore, but in terms of probability distributions that are expected to arise of results of measurements), and are extremely important in cryptography, so Heisenberg's original uncertainty relation is one of the most basic ones. Search the current literature and you'll find lots of recent results on uncertainty relations, and their current applications (aside from philosophical ones :) )
Fabrice Auzanneau> As per QFT the uncertainty is actually take as equality h/2Pi to describe the energy of quantum fluctuation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_fluctuation .
If you look at the spread of states, the bound is always h/2Pi but you can design experiments to measure the most probable state with error bound lesser than h/2Pi. Measuring most probably state with error bound much lesser than h/2Pi is different than the real spread of the states.
For example if there is a probability distribution, you can always make the spread narrower and nearer to the most probable measurement by multiple measurements and averaging but it does mean that overall spread of single measurement is lower.
Have You read the original Heisenberg paper? In the beginning is clear said: the uncertainty originates from discontinuity of space-time. Because there are experiments proving, that spacetime is continuous, then the David Bohm's theory is right, and Bohr's philosophy is wrong.
I think that we have over-estimate the validity of Fourier Analysis in quantum theories. Fourier is not panacea and the relevant 'Heisenberg uncertainty principle' is not the Holy Grail of Physics.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Physics