Higgs mechanism

Mechanism that explains the generation of mass for gauge bosons

In the Standard Model of particle physics, the Higgs mechanism is essential to explain the generation mechanism of the property "mass" for gauge bosons. Without the Higgs mechanism, all bosons (one of the two classes of particles, the other being fermions) would be considered massless, but measurements show that the W+, W−, and Z0 bosons actually have relatively large masses of around 80 GeV/c2 (in comparison to other particles like protons and neutrons, at about 1 GeV/c2). The Higgs field resolves this conundrum.

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