TY - JOUR

T1 - The case of the composite Higgs

T2 - The model as a "Rosetta stone" in contemporary high-energy physics

AU - Borrelli, Arianna

PY - 2012/8

Y1 - 2012/8

N2 - This paper analyses the practice of model-building "beyond the Standard Model" in contemporary high-energy physics and argues that its epistemic function can be grasped by regarding models as mediating between the phenomenology of the Standard Model and a number of "theoretical cores" of hybrid character, in which mathematical structures are combined with verbal narratives ("stories") and analogies referring back to empirical results in other fields ("empirical references"). Borrowing a metaphor from a physics research paper, model-building is likened to the search for a Rosetta stone, whose significance does not lie in its immediate content, but rather in the chance it offers to glimpse at and manipulate the components of hybrid theoretical constructs. I shall argue that the rise of hybrid theoretical constructs was prompted by the increasing use of nonrigorous mathematical heuristics in high-energy physics. Support for my theses will be offered in form of a historical-philosophical analysis of the emergence and development of the theoretical core centring on the notion that the Higgs boson is a composite particle. I will follow the heterogeneous elements which would eventually come to form this core from their individual emergence in the 1960s and 1970s, through their collective life as a theoretical core from 1979 until the present day.

AB - This paper analyses the practice of model-building "beyond the Standard Model" in contemporary high-energy physics and argues that its epistemic function can be grasped by regarding models as mediating between the phenomenology of the Standard Model and a number of "theoretical cores" of hybrid character, in which mathematical structures are combined with verbal narratives ("stories") and analogies referring back to empirical results in other fields ("empirical references"). Borrowing a metaphor from a physics research paper, model-building is likened to the search for a Rosetta stone, whose significance does not lie in its immediate content, but rather in the chance it offers to glimpse at and manipulate the components of hybrid theoretical constructs. I shall argue that the rise of hybrid theoretical constructs was prompted by the increasing use of nonrigorous mathematical heuristics in high-energy physics. Support for my theses will be offered in form of a historical-philosophical analysis of the emergence and development of the theoretical core centring on the notion that the Higgs boson is a composite particle. I will follow the heterogeneous elements which would eventually come to form this core from their individual emergence in the 1960s and 1970s, through their collective life as a theoretical core from 1979 until the present day.

KW - Composite Higgs

KW - High-energy physics

KW - Model-building

KW - Nonrigorous mathematics

KW - Philosophy

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84864026968&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.shpsb.2012.04.003

DO - 10.1016/j.shpsb.2012.04.003

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:84864026968

VL - 43

SP - 195

EP - 214

JO - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B - Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics

JF - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B - Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics

SN - 1355-2198

IS - 3

ER -