Higgs Field and the wrinkling of Graphene.

[sjastro]

Very interesting stuff.
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/44994

Regards

Steven

[CraigS]

Ok, so here's a couple of quotes from this article, which should serve to summarise it:

Working with colleagues Francisco Guinea and Jose Gonzalez, San-Jose claims to have shown that the energy landscape of graphene rippling in 2D and that of the Higgs field in 3D, are described by similar "Mexican hat" potentials. Like a sombrero, the potential energy starts high in the centre but quickly falls away to a minimum in any direction. The negative curvature at the top ensures that symmetry will break spontaneously – any push from the centre sends the system down towards a stable point in the brim, just where the edge of the hat begins to climb again.

In the case of graphene, the negative curvature is a result of how graphene responds to being stretched or compressed. In particle physics, negative curvature is a result of the relationship between the Higgs field and the "bare" mass of the Higgs boson. In order to be unstable, this bare mass must be imaginary – the Higgs boson acquires a real, effective mass when the field reaches its true stable ground state.

So this guy is suggesting that studying the 'energy landscape' of Graphene, may tell us more about the behaviours in Higgs quantum field theory, the details of which, are 'mathematically difficult'.

(So this reminds me of the analogy developed for studying Hawking Radiation. Ie: using lasers colliding in the optical domain, to create an artificial black hole).

I suppose any new information discovered using this analogy, might speed up the hunt for the Higgs … gotta find it before they can predict its behaviours under variable conditions, eh ??

Cheers

[CraigS]

The more I look at this, the more interesting it becomes.

It seems the ripples arise due to spontaneous symmetry breaking, but the ripples are themselves, caused by interaction between 'flexural phonons'.

This mechanism is similar to what happens in crystal oscillators.

The propagation of Phonons through a crystal lattice, also reminds me of density waves in the arms of a spiral galaxy.

Interesting.

Cheers

[avandonk]

What are these Phonons? I have never heard them!

Bert

[sjastro]

Not another phonon joke.

Steven

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by avandonk

What are these Phonons? I have never heard them!

Bert

Phonons are the sound equivalent of photons within a (crystalline) solid, e.g. graphene crystals.

They're the modes of vibration setup when a sound wave travels through a crystal lattice. If you remember your harmonics from high school, you'll know that harmonic vibrations within a solid (as well as pure sound waves in any other medium) occur as fundamental tones and overtones of the fundamental. These can be expressed similarly to light waves/particles in a quantum sense, i.e. the phonons have a dual particle/wave nature and behave accordingly. Each phonon has a particular wavelength and frequency and this is expressed as the harmonic vibrations within the crystal lattice.