But quarks are massless in the unconfined phase of QCD, and
quarks are electrically charged.
Regards,
Jack
I wrote in my original question.
PS Most theories beyond the standard model treats all particles as if they
had zero rest mass. In fact it is the Higgs field breaking Chiral Symmetry
that gives particles of the standard model their rest mass. Can this be
reconciled with the above?
Again this question is not, I believe, straight forward. This very point is
what prompts my question. You tell me I didn't formulate the question
correctly and I haven't thought it out. I beg to differ. Now you are bringing
out one of the points I was making. All particles are massless until the
Higgs field gives them a rest mass. ( Assuming that part of SM is found to
hold.) Yet we don't find ELECTRICALLY CHARGED particles which have zero rest
mass.
*******************
(charged particles have radiation resistance which looks a lot like inertia
except they emit photons. Is this why they can't be massless? Feynman
suspected that mass inertia was due to a similar effect involving gravitons.
However such a straight forward comparison doesn't work because we have no QM
theory for gravity so Feynman's suspicion went nowhere.)
**********************************
So here goes again. Maybe someone will find this point interesting enough to
comment on. I am going to change the question.
IF IT IS TRUE THAT ELECTRICALLY CHARGED PARTICLES CAN'T BE MASSLESS THAN IF
WE COULD SOMEHOW TURN OFF THE HIGGS FIELD MUST WE ALSO TURN OFF THE EM FIELD?
AT WHAT POINT DOES THE HIGGS FIELD GIVE PARTICLES THEIR MASS? IS IT AT THE
ELECTROWEAK SCALE? ( Do we know?)
I certainly hope this can become a physics discussion because I don't think
the question is trivial or straight forward. These are all really the same
question but from different perspectives.
Bob Zannelli
Given the intelligence level on this list I am amazed no one is seeing the
point I am trying to make here.