Robert,

Here is a thought experiment that is similar to the “Light Is Heavy” paper but extends this to the Higgs field. Suppose that I have a box with reflecting walls. Inside this box I place an electron and positron. At some later time they are converted to two gamma ray photons. To conserve momentum, there has to be no change in the inertia of the closed box when the energy is either fermions or confined photons. An electron must have exactly the same amount of inertia as 511,000 eV of photons confined in a reflecting box. The point is that it is not enough to postulate that the Higgs field gives some vague amount of inertia to particles as shown in the videos. It is necessary to explain how electrons, muons, protons, etc. receive the exact inertia exhibited by the equivalent amount of photon energy confined in a reflecting box. The Higgs field does not adequately explain this beyond merely stating E = mc2. If we are trying to explain the physics behind the “m” term, this is not an adequate explanation.

You are looking for a reference that shows that the Higgs mechanism creates a virtual zig-zag on an electron or other point particle. Perhaps there is such a reference, but I propose that this is the wrong model of both an electron and inertia. In the big picture, any model of an electron must adequately explain all its properties simultaneously. Besides inertia it must also explain an electron’s de Broglie waves, ½ ħ angular momentum, energy content, Compton frequency, electric field, curvature of spacetime, gravitational force, path integral effects, 720ᵒ mystery, etc. This probably seems like an overwhelming task, but merely focusing on one aspect such as inertia resulting from a zig zag path in the Higgs field is not useful if the answer is incompatible with explaining de Broglie waves, angular momentum, etc.

Rather than a top-down approach which goes from the particular to the general, I have taken a bottom-up approach which starts with the question: Is it possible to build everything in the universe from 4 dimensional spacetime? The standard model is essentially a field theory. The 17 named particles are all considered to be “excitations” of their respective fields as shown in the videos. Therefore, the first step in a bottom-up approach is to start with a physical model of the fields. For example, is there any connection between the fields of the standard model and zero point energy? The result of this approach is given in the papers and book on my ResearchGate home page. The particle model created from the quantum mechanical model of spacetime gives exactly the correct amount of inertia to particles in addition to giving the correct de Broglie waves, the correct curvature of spacetime, the correct gravitational force, etc.

I am currently writing a paper which shows that the gravitational wave designated GW150914 gives experimental proof that an energetic spacetime field exists. Gravitational waves with angular frequency ω encounter a “spacetime field” with energy density of U = (1/16π)c2ω2/G.

John, thank you for your answer.  For this question, I am not concerned with whether the "new" explanation is correct, or not.  I am only concerned with whether it is an ad hoc creation of some pedagogist or whether there is a published reference.

The gist of your comment is that the commonly cited explanation that the degree of inertial of a particle is due to its propensity to interact with the Higgs field is completely illogical.  If the particle has rest mass, it must be dependent only on its energy and nothing else.

Robert:   I would like clarification on your last comment. I am indeed saying that the Higgs mechanism does not logically imply a perfect correlation between particle energy and rest mass. Even if the interaction with the Higgs field scales with energy such that a muon gets 207 times more inertia than an electron, there is no guarantee that the conversion factor between particle energy and inertia imparted by the Higgs field will match the inertia exhibited by equal energy of confined photons.

Furthermore, suppose that we compare a neutrino, an electron and a proton. These three are examples of completely different types of particles. The neutrino has no electrical charge while the electron has a distributed electric field with energy which contributes to the electron’s inertia. A proton has quarks with some rest mass, an energetic electric field, kinetic energy of the quarks and gluons. Those believing that the Higgs field imparts mass must address the problem of how these different types of particles obtain the correct total inertia to correspond to the inertia of their annihilation energy if converted to confined photons.

John, all you are saying is that the old 1993 metaphor doesn't work, which is already well known.  I do not have the capability to read and understand the Higgs papers for myself.  I cannot find a local course in QFT, which is a prerequisite.  So we are just taking up space here talking about something I cannot settle.  The point of the question is, CAN A REFERENCE BE FOUND SUPPORTING THE NEW METAPHOR which is more like a photon in a box: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASRpIym_jFM 

If this can be supported, then the coupling factor disappears.  Completely.  The zig-zag "coupling" for any stationary particle is exactly 100% of its energy, which is exactly the right amount regardless of the composition of the particle.

We now have a Higgs particle.  Whether we have the correct theory of it, we can discuss (well, someone familiar with QFT can).  Whether it explains inertia, I can discuss as classical inertia theory is one of my specialties.  The existence of a new particle makes the subject interesting.  It does not make old papers automatically clear (or possibly does not make them even correct).

WHO CAN PROVIDE THE REFERENCE?  (PS, the author of the video has not responded)

A seesaw-like mechanism is at work in the generation of fermion masses and a reabsorbing is one of terms used with a Higgs mechanism. But I prefer a continuous change between opposite handednesses at whole spacetime. Sorry, I have no link to some technical paper but an enlighten video link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqNg819PiZY

Thanks for your answer, Esa.  I have previously watched the Susskind video and it is very good.  It explains a lot of things about the Higgs mechanism more clearly than other sources.  I didn't mention it because it is an hour long, and it doesn't actually explain inertia any better than the 1993 metaphor - which is so bad that I consider it harmful and it would have been better if it had never been proposed.  There is no way to get frame independent (relativistic) inertia out of either of these.  (Even the zig-zag is not sufficient in and of itself, but it provides hooks that an accurate explanation of inertia might use).

A LITTLE MORE ABOUT MY PURPOSE:

It may be helpful to give the reason for my question.  I am in possession of a particularly simple method of calculating null geodesics using only the coordinate velocity of light, without necessity of tensors or even geodesic equations, and have demonstrated this to high order in the publication linked below. 

This same approach could calculate non-null geodesics of confined light, such as a photon in a box, or something like the toroidial or cyndrically propagating photon of certain theories of the electron.  These theories aren't mainstream, though.  The Higgs mechanism is mainstream.  When I saw the zig-zag metaphor, I immediately wanted to write a pedagogical note about the applicability of my method to produce correct geodesics from it.  However, I must have a reference proving it is an accepted interpretation of the Higgs mechanism (and hopefully giving a little more detail about it).  Nothing less will do. 

http://www.isaac-scientific.org/PaperInformations.aspx?ids=4&pid=1046&jqy=Volume%202,%20Number%201,%20August%202016&JShortName=AdAp

Whether one should in a research paper cite the popular book

Roger Penrose: The Road to Reality, Vintage Books, 2004

can be debated. However, in its chapter 25 there is a reasonable exposition of Higgs and zigzag.

Um, yes, debatable, but I believe I have that book somewhere on my hard drive and it is a start.  I'll read that chapter over the weekend.  Thanks.

To Ulrich: agreed, that Penrose Chapter 25 gives a very good sketch of a zigzag electron, especially for someone familiar with the ziggs particle Susskind introduces in his Higgs video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqNg819PiZY

( A ziggs particle? Who ordered that?  See below   :-)

To John Macken: I'd like to study your spacetime scheme closely. Is this latest version of your work: 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280559179_The_Universe_Is_Only_Spacetime

Re: Higgs mechanism and the zig-zagging of particles:

To Robert:  One of the refreshing features of that Susskind video is the way he explains what's actually required for the Brout-Englert-Higgs (BEH) mechanism to work -- that a Z boson needs to acquire, then lose, well-defined quanta of weak hypercharge (what he calls zilch in the video).

As I understand it, this oscillation of the Z boson between states (between having and not having zilch) -is- the BEH mechanism for which Englert and Higgs got their prize?  Susskind points out a subtle features of this scheme:  that a Z boson without zilch is different to a Z boson with zilch.  It's this 2nd state (Z boson + zilch) that Susskind refers to as a "ziggs".  Why call this quantum state a ziggs?  Maybe because of its role in the zig-zagging of a Z boson.

PS: he introduces his ziggs near time 48:10, and links it with the Z boson around time 52:55 in the video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqNg819PiZY 

Another highlight of that video is the way Susskind exposes the issue of what's required for an electron to flip chirality.  A left-handed electron state has zilch, the right-handed state... no zilch.  Where does the zilch go?  How does the left-hand state lose its well-defined quanta of zilch?  In his explanation, Susskind calls on that ziggs particle to carry away the zilch...  hmm.

When physicists patched together the standard model during the 1970's, this is the sort of complexity they had to accommodate.  Almost as bizarre as Dirac modelling an electron as a superposition of 2 pairs of Weyl fermions.  Do such schemes (Dirac, Higgs, ziggs) imply electrons have structure?  Are there unknown unknowns (among the known unknowns) that makes particles appear to wave?

Such things come to mind when [OP] Robert mentioned zig-zags.  Especially when we put side-by-side de Broglie's wavelength and chiral oscillation.

[PS] To John Macken:  your spacetime wave-based fermions look like an interesting foundation for a bottom-up model.  Conjures up thoughts of quantized, superfluid vortices (frame-dragging 3-toroids) of some primitive stuff that pervades what we call space.  Since this primitive stuff is pre-photonic, it's very dark  :-)

Thanks for the stimulating discussion!

Nigel

Research The Universe Is Only Spacetime

@Nigel, thanks for various comments.  Indeed, before posting this question I watched Susskind a second time thinking I had seen the zig-zag there.  But it's frustratingly not there in spite of his use of the "ziggs" particle term.  This might be a reference to zig zag, or a reference to his "zilch" term combined with "Higgs."  Or even some oblique reference to the Z boson and the Higgs field.  He doesn't say, and one of these is about as relevant as another.

What I found most striking about the Susskind video was the explanation of a condensate, and how this relates to the unique configuration of the Higgs field, i.e. we don't have EM condensates, but for Higgs this makes it possible to pull out and push back the special "zilch" or hypercharge aspect without "changing" the vacuum.

@Ulrich, indeed Penrose devotes many pages to the zig-zag business, explicitly stating the electron moves at the speed of light between Higgs interactions.  I think I had noticed this section the first time I skimmed through this book, and probably had one figure in my head, but at the earlier time I wasn't so specifically interested in the zig-zagging.  Penrose states his approach is "unconventional" but it is not clear "what part of it".  I think it could be used as a weak general reference if worded properly.

The upshot seems of our discussion to be, and any of you please advise me if this conceptualization would not fly with a reviewer, that:

• The electron (quark, etc.) moves at light speed when it is not interacting with the Higgs field.
• The net effect of Higgs interactions is to grant mass.
• Trajectories are not precise in QFT, but nonetheless, the average trajectory integrated over many interactions will be that of a massive particle (i.e. with rest mass).
• If we take the reference frame of the massive particle, the integral of trajectory is zero, so there is a probabilistic cloud of trajectories in various directions.
• A valid approach to my goal could be to show that for any set of trajectories that in the unaccelerated frame of the particle end up at the starting point, will in the accelerated frame (or in a gravitational field) in the absence of other forces end up at some different point, satisfying the condition of acceleration.  This can be used to derive a timelike geodesic from a series of null geodesics.
• If I further show that, assuming the net momentum in the original particle reference frame is zero (which it must be or that wouldn't be the rest frame), that in the gravitational field, the particle can be forced to remain zig zagging about its starting point by the addition of momentum ma, then Newton's law and the equivalence of gravitational and inertial mass is derived.  

Is that claiming too much?  You see, I've started with modest goals, but by the end the claim becomes something that people fuss over.

Further, this argument while valid for the Higgs model of inertia, applies equally to the less popular models of inertial matter (e.g. electron-positron) as circulating EM waves.  I am unsure whether to add this point to my planned exposition.  It is conditional, i.e. it does not imply anything unless the circulating EM model is assumed and therefore harmless, but might start arguments or lead someone to think I am suggesting it?

Dear Robert!

Matter exists in two forms: Substantial matter and energetic matter. Rest mass is natural on of the the new qualitis of particles in comparison to photons. But energy supply leads always to accumulation of energy. In the one case to increasing mass, in the other case to increasing frequency.

In my opinion the Higgs-theory is unrealistic. The so called "Higgs-field" is a return to the Ether theory. This is a sign of deficient knowledge.

My Regards

Hans

Well, Hans, please start a new thread to discuss Higgs.  The objective of my thread is purely to develop my idea of timelike geodesics from light bending alone, and to show compatibility with a variety of theories, including Higgs, not to question any of them.

If anyone is still following here, please comment on the following puzzle that becomes more obvious in the zig-zag metaphor, though I suppose it was there all along:

In order to actually confer inertia, not just drag relative to the Higgs field, the points of interaction (however vague their locations may be in QFT terms), must be stationary in the reference frame of the particle, however it accelerates.  Otherwise an “ether” situation develops.  This is essentially the problem with the cocktail-party “drag” metaphor for Higgs.  Since my background is more relativity than QM, that metaphor immediately grates on my nerves, worse than running a fingernail over a chalkboard. 

If you have a photon in a box, the rigid dimensions of the box keep interactions in generally the right reference frame.  As the Higgs is derived from a Lagrangian, and it is a “feature” of Lagrangians to gloss over the dynamics and just give the result, there is no insight that I can see into this from the formal derivation.

Side questions that come up are probably well known to you already:

• What is the reference frame for any QFT field, and/or why is one not needed?
• Should we add the energy value of the Higgs field to vacuum energy?
• Does the non-zero Higgs energy contribute to gravity (should we add it to the stress-energy tensor), or if not why not?  (I’ve seen some papers discussing the so-called “vacuum catastrophe” but not mentioning Higgs)

In my speculations there is one developed zig-zag modelling idea for Higgs field to integrate with GR.

Just take really opposite handedness phases in vacuum. When inertial mass energy concerned, Higgs mechanism let handedness alternate continuously opposite to opposite and Higgs field have two values +h and -h, average is zero. When gluons and quarks exist, there is more positions and more accelerations, more time and more mass. ... And of course more inertia-gravitation.

As a bonus, the matter/anti-matter symmetry violation become needless and electricity-charge-magnetism get a candidate for combined mechanism.

Are the higgs field vacuum scalar potential value = 2 * Higgs boson energy and the mass of proton as 3/400 * the mass of Higgs boson some hints or not? To be seen...

Sorry the puzzling coincidence findings, but I really have not any explanations, only the need for further explorations.

Thanks for your thoughts and puzzles, Esa.

Dear Robert Shuler,

In my paper you will find all what you want!! According to my transformation Sagnac effect can be solved exactly same as in the framework of the ether theory, but instead of the ether, it is vacuum energy and that means QFT. The decrease in the speed of light globally is vacuum energy dependent but locally the speed of light is constant and equals to c. Thus Gravity is according to my equivalence principle QFT. I solved Mercury precession, light bending by gravity, Shiparo delay and Pioneer anomaly QFT according to my transformation. In this case Higgs field can be explained completely by QFT according to my theory since it supports the ether theory, and it is explained by the vacuum energy in my theory. Furthermore my theory explains CMB anisotropy by QFM. 

http://physicsessays.org/browse-journal-2/product/1490-18-azzam-almosallami-reinterpretation-of-lorentz-transformation-according-to-the-copenhagen-school-and-the-quantization-of-gravity.html

Robert - thanks for pursuing this.  Whether it's flipping or waving or rotating {Higgs, de Broglie, or Hestenes}, locating your observation in a particle's frame is worth the attempt.

Regarding the zigzag notion, what I like about Susskind's variation (zig-zagging via ziggs) is that he explores a mechanism behind chirality;  and that whereas Penrose implies a zig state 'can' interact with zilch, Susskind allows for a ziggs to mediate that interaction.

In your original question, you mentioned "explanations... in which Higgs interactions cause deviations in the trajectory of a light speed particle ".  In this regard, what we really need is for some bright spark to work out what kind of interaction could cause the longitudinal polarization of the photon to contract.  From there, we should be able to work out why mass-energy affects the manifold (or at least that particular manifold accessible to our tools).

Thanks, and good work!

Nigel, suppose you take the position, for developmental purposes, that we need nothing new.  Let anything new force its way in by absolute demonstration that what we have is inadequate.

From the point of view of Higgs theory, you have that the Higgs field causes inertia.

From the point of view of GR, you have that inertial mass causes gravity.

Now at this point, you see a bunch of forum questions about Higgs gravity, and a bunch of careful answers from QFT experts explaining that Higgs has nothing to do with gravity.  And so I was assuming for a long while, mostly out of self defense as I didn't want to mess up my gravity theories with complicated Higgs mathematics.

From another point of view you have the Higgs field which has non-zero value throughout space.  And you have vacuum energy (VU).  I have asked what is the difference and what part of VU is Higgs, and the post gets voted up and down but no one answers.  Strange.

So we have a statistical collection of traces from which is deduced a real Higgs boson, so let's assume we have a real Higgs field, and let's assume further it does all the heavy lifting.  That is my latest question.  Does it fail and if so at what point?

So, basically, the Higgs field would be the manifold.  You may be quick to point out that the Higgs field is constant.  Yes, but ... if you measure the Higgs field using a homogeneous coordinate reference, one in which the space-time variations of the manifold are apparent, then any constant field follows the variations of the space-time manifold and could "be" the manifold.  So it holds up that far.

Separately I have concluded that it may be sufficient for a manifold to affect the speed of light in order to produce all gravitational effects, if that is, it is true that rest mass is just light in a box so to speak (the Higgs field being what puts it in that box).  There are probably a few refinements needed on this idea, but definitely you can find all light paths based on coordinate velocity and fresnel bending.  I demonstrated it with a numerical algorithm well into the 2nd order effects.

So, then indeed if Higgs determined both the speed of light, and contains light to make rest mass, it accounts for gravity.  Big if's, but just a line of thought...

Then you are asking, how mass generates the Higgs field, or how energy generates it rather, light, photons.  I don't know.  But it is exactly the right question.

It's possible to do without a field at all and have energy directly interact with other energy via the uncertainty principle.  This produces a 1/R potential law which produces a gravity that is a close approximation to GR but not exactly.  I wrote about it in some early papers.  But without a field, it is not very popular in QFT circles.

Robert,

Problem with your proposal is that the sum of the values of Higgs field must be zero, if you want it to be a manifold. (Or it must be possible to shift to zero relatively).

In my earlier thought of the Higgs field alternating handedness and value between -h to +h, the average being zero, makes a moebius strip like manifold possible. Then a measuring particle reads light like space via opposite phases and can gets its inertia and gravitating slipstream directly by Higgs-like binary mechanism but as a vector space for an outer observer.

I only mean a correspondence.  So any constant value can be scaled to zero by a gauge transformation.

The rest of your comments point toward the missing piece that my main thread-question was trying to obtain.  I understand how, for example, the spins change, as Susskind explains this in his video.  But how to get from there to a zig-zag, even a stochastic one, which acts like a mirror containment box in the particle's rest frame no matter how the particle's state of motion changes, seems to be missing.

The nature of the Higgs field is ultra discrete, on/off. You can't scaled it to zero by any transformation without violating its discreteness. In my idea that it's -1,0,+1 gap being measurable inertia or not. If yes, being handed or opposite handed. So we get two observable opposite handed manifolds for opposite charges combined as a mass mechanism. Might work.

The Higgs interaction is discrete.  The Higgs field is just an energy field that settles to a non-zero value throughout the universe.  I meant the latter, not the former.

Robert; "From the point of view of Higgs theory, you have that the Higgs field causes inertia."

No, it does not. Photons have inertia and they do not interact with the Higgs field. The Higgs field causes mass. But in relativity, inertia is not carried by mass but by energy. A photon does not have mass but it has energy and hence inertia. The source of gravity is the stress-energy tensor, not mass, which is a scalar quantity.

Of course, mass gives a contribution to the energy of a massive particle, visible in a formula such as E=(m2c4+p2c2)1/2, where m is the mass and p the momentum. But the inertia of the particle is proportional to E, and it is present even if there is no mass. So clearly, the Higgs mechanism is not capable of explaining inertia. It can only explain why a particle may move at a velocity different from c, on average.

Klaus, no one ever said the Higgs was the sole cause of inertia.  It imparts inertia to certain things through interactions.  BTW, this is an old thread.  A fully peer reviewed paper comparing various inertia fields as to which have "no deep connection to gravity" (according to head of US participation in CERN, Higgs is in this category, and I define the conditions for this to be true, and I suspect it is true) and gravity related (if the Haisch-Rueda-Puthoff vacuum theory is true, then it is gravity related.  I have no idea if it is true or not).  See http://www.isaacpub.org/PaperInformation.aspx?ids=25&pid=1258&jqy=Volume%202,%20Number%202,%20June%202017&JShortName=TP 

I thought you were looking for the cause of inertia. The Higgs mechanism can be excluded, because it only modifies an already existing inertia. Inertia is present without the Higgs mechanism.

Roughly speaking, a cause of a phenomenon is something which when removed makes the phenomenon go away. If something is a cause but not the sole cause, this should still be true. It should be necessary for the phenomenon to exist. This is not so for the Higgs mechanism, the absence of which does not remove inertia. Hence, it is immaterial to the question of inertia. It is not one cause among others, it is just not the cause.

If an object is heated up, its inertia is also increased. Nevertheless, I have not yet seen people claim that heat is a cause of inertia.

I believe that at the heart of this idea of the Higgs mechanism having to do with inertia is a simple confusion between mass and energy. That can happen, if you continue to think in Newtonian terms.

Agree.  Other people, including physicists, use the term "cause."  I may have loosely used it but here I was just trying to understand the sharing mechanism.  The cocktail party metaphor adopted a few decades ago is particularly bad in my opinion, and conveys friction rather than inertia.  This is not so much a matter of physics as very crude popular metaphors.  Penrose's zig-zag metaphor does not have much endorsement, and is perhaps too Feynman-like for modern taste, but is easy to understand. See you!

Similar to zigzag structure of string appears as orientifold in Kerr-Newman electron model