Christophe Grojean: The different faces of the Higgs boson

Wednesday May 27, 2015, 1:00 PM → 2:00 PM Europe/Madrid

Seminar (IFAE)

Jelena Aleksic (IFAE), Joern Lange (IFAE Barcelona), Stefania Bordoni (IFAE)

The Higgs boson discovery in July 2012 has confirmed experimentally the realization of a beautiful theoretical idea proposed 50 years ago according to which the symmetry of the ground state can be different that the symmetry of the fundamental laws of Nature, with the important consequence that some forces get screened at large distances and incidentally the elementary particles of the Standard Model acquire a mass. I'll report on an economic analogy of the Higgs mechanism, recently proposed by Juan Maldacena, in which the electrons are speculators and the positrons have debts. If it doesn't make you richer (sorry!), this analogy might bring you some insights on the meaning associated to the Higgs boson.

1:00 PM → 1:05 PM Introduction and General Announcements

Speakers: Dr Jelena Aleksic (IFAE), Joern Lange (IFAE Barcelona), Stefania Bordoni (IFAE)

1:05 PM → 1:25 PM Presentation of the Week

Speaker: christophe grojean (ICREA/IFAE)

1:25 PM → 1:35 PM Discussion

1:35 PM → 2:00 PM Pizza