sci.physics.particle

I read the current February Scientific American issue which
focuses on the Large Hadron Collider and the coming physics.
It mentions the so called Hierarchy Problem. I encountered this
concept before in Randall's Warped Passages & others but
didn't totally understood them. I thought it was simply
about why gravity is very weak compared to the electroweak
or unification scale... and I thought before so what they
are just like that. but the article and succeeding researches in
the net say there is a technical explanation and it is about
the Higgs. Theoretical justification says that the Higgs boson
which satisfy the electroweak theory should have almost planck
mass but in reality it is much lower.

For those who don't understand what is the Hierarchy Problem.
This is how I understand it. Say Jerry who is poor african guy has
total money or asset of $50. Bill Gates has asset worth $100 billion.
In
the odd quantum world. Virtual particles can do parlor tricks. So
it's like asking how come Jerry is not as rich as Bill Gates.
In quantum terms esp HUP. If the time is small enough, there
is uncertainty in energy which could be any amount. So poor
Jerry could have $100 billion within a certain time allowed
by the uncertainty. This means Jerry has potential $100 billion
but how come he doesn't actually have it.

Well. The above is not a very accurate analogy. Let's go
directly to the point. The Higgs can theoretically have virtual
particles that can reach the planck mass or energy. So
theoretical justification says the Higgs boson should be almost
in the planck mass range because of quantum contributions
or corrections (involving virtual particles). But in reality it is
only in
the electroweak mass scale (1 TeV compared to the planck
mass 10 ^ 16 T).

So the most puzzling problem in physics now is how come
poor Jerry or almost any person on earth is not as rich
as Bill Gates? Or why the Higgs doesn't have planck mass..

BTW.. I also read that chiral symmetry protect the masses
of the bosons and fermions such as quarks and electrons
from undergoing the same problem as the Higgs which
can by theory reach planck mass scale but not.
Something about the actual masses proportional to the
intrinsic masses (bare masses without quantum contributions).
Can anyone explain what this means? Does it have something
to do with the fact that the quarks and electrons before
symmetry breaking don't have masses that's why they
are said to be "protected" or is it a QED stunt and if so,
What's the detail why chiral symmetry protect the masses of the
bosons and fermions from undergoing quantum corrections
that could pull their masses to the planck scale?

Well. Presently they have some solutions to solve the Hierarchy
Problem. One is Supersymmetry in which our fermions and
bosons have superpartners. This means the higgs planck
mass of say a photon is cancelled by the corresponding
higgs planck mass of say the sphoton but this is not
convincing because they are not detected as is, meaning
they don't exactly correspond to the standard model masses.
Also Supersymmetry can introduce 120 more constants of
nature add hocly added in addition to the 20 Standard Model
variables.

The second solution to solve the hierarchy problems involved
hidden dimensions. I went back to Randall book and finally
understood what she was implying. It is that the electroweak
masses are sequestered in a brane while the planck masses
are sequestered in another brane. This means their
quantum side is isolated from each other so the higgs can
only reach the maximum of the electroweak mass scale
or about 1 TeV rather than 10 ^16T. This is cool explanation
and I wonder how many agree to this. Randall also mentions
how infinite extra dimensions could exist and the
Kaluza Klein signatures or particles being so light
that they can't be detected (because of the theory that
small dimensions can produce massive KK particles
while large dimensions can produce lighter KK particles).

Third solution is the so called "light higgs" stuff which
doesn't allow higher dimensions. Do you agree with it?

Fourth solution is that the concept of virtual particles have
flaws or not thouroughly understood although this is
unlikely because of the amazing success of QED and
QFT which can prove in analogy that a poor south
african farmer named Jerry can have a virtual Jerry that
is as rich as Bill Gates. This is the amazing world of
QED where things are more bizarre than sci-fi. Where
quantum corrections and virtual particles can play
parlor tricks that can make newtonians crazy.

The Hierarchy Problem is the mother of physics problem in
which convensional physicists focus. I wonder how come
the kooks here don't discuss this. This is much more
interesting than any of their materials. Come on. Let's
focus on the Hierarchy Problem as it is what really
matter.

Zilla