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![blindmen6:
Quantum Field Theory - VIII
The Vacuum Field - 2
The Higgs Field
Currently, physics is in lack of a general theory of what the vacuum and the vacuum energy-field actually is. However, since the nineteen-sixties the consensus has gradually emerged that a certain field, the Higgs field, resides in the vacuum. The Higgs field differs from the ordinary fields in the respect that even in its ground-state there are quanta present. These quanta, the Higgs bosons, are regarded as actual physical manifestations of the vacuum energy-field. It is generally believed that the Higgs field is the entity which is responsible for turning the vacuum energy into matter.
According to Quantum Field Theory the ordinary quanta require their mass by interactions with the Higgs field (or rather, with the vacuum expectation value of the Higgs field). Prior to this interaction the electrons, quarks, force-carriers, etc. are the massless quanta of some assumed fields - the socalled gauge fields. In their massless shape the gauge field quanta are undetectable - so it is currently an open question whether the gauge fields actually are of physical relevance or just mathematical entities. Nevertheless, it is the consensus that the theory about the Higgs mechanism is the one theory that fits best with everything else known to quantum physics.
[buddhasociety.com/quantum-physics/vacuum-fields-6]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2sk5nO6Y91rojv9po1_r1_250.jpg)
