Does the Higgs field give the electron its mass?
This text mentions work from 2024 on. Those parts were partly written without a live literature search and have not been checked by an editor yet.
In plain words
The electron couples to the Higgs so weakly (strength about 3 in a million) that the coupling has never been detected. Measuring it would show whether the Higgs field is the source of the mass of the particle that sets the size of atoms.
Precise statement
Measure the electron Yukawa coupling $y_e$ (SM value $\sqrt{2}\,m_e/v \sim 2.9 \times 10^{-6}$), or $\kappa_e = y_e/y_e^{\mathrm{SM}}$. The best direct bound, CMS $\operatorname{BR}(H \to e+ e-) < 3.0 \times 10^{-4}$ at 95 percent CL (Phys. Lett. B 846, 137783, 2023), corresponds to $\left|\kappa_e\right| < \sim 240$ (approximate, using $\operatorname{BR}_{\mathrm{SM}} \sim 5 \times 10^{-9}$). An answer is $\kappa_e$ measured with $O(1)$ precision, enough to separate $\kappa_e = 1$ from $\kappa_e = 0$.
What would settle it
Resonant s-channel production $e+ e- \to H$ at $\sqrt{s}=m_{H}$ with a center-of-mass energy spread of about 4 MeV at FCC-ee, projected to reach $1.3\,\sigma$ for the SM coupling (an upper limit of 1.6 times $y_{e}^{\mathrm{SM}}$) per interaction point per year with $10\,\mathrm{ab}^{-1}$ (d'Enterria, Poldaru, Wojcik, Eur. Phys. J. Plus 137, 201, 2022, arXiv:2107.02686).
Status in the literature
Unverified note: it names recent work and was partly written without a live literature search; it awaits a check by an editor.
Only upper bounds exist as of 2026; FCC-ee feasibility studies reach sensitivity near the SM value.
Results
No results have been posted on this problem yet.
Post a result · how results are checked
Sign in to follow or save this problem
Comments (0)
Comments are not records: they are not signed, stamped or logged. How comments work
No comments yet.
Sign in to comment.