“We wonder why a group of talented and dedicated people would dedicate their lives to chasing objects so tiny that they can't even be seen? In fact, in the classes of particle physicists, human curiosity and a desire to find out how the world in which we live works is manifested. ” Sean Carroll

If you are still afraid of the phrase quantum mechanics and still do not know what the standard model is - welcome to cat. In my publication, I will try to explain the basics of the quantum world, as well as elementary particle physics, as simply and clearly as possible. We will try to figure out what are the main differences between fermions and bosons, why quarks have such strange names, and finally, why everyone was so eager to find the Higgs Boson.

What are we made of?

Well, we will begin our journey into the microcosm with a simple question: what do the objects around us consist of? Our world, like a house, consists of many small bricks, which, when combined in a special way, create something new, not only in appearance, but also in terms of its properties. In fact, if you look closely at them, you will find that there are not so many different types of blocks, it’s just that each time they are connected to each other in different ways, forming new forms and phenomena. Each block is an indivisible elementary particle, which will be discussed in my story.

For example, let's take some substance, let it be the second element periodic system Mendeleev, inert gas, helium. Like other substances in the universe, helium is made up of molecules, which in turn are formed by bonds between atoms. But in this case, for us, helium is a little bit special because it's just one atom.

What is an atom made of?

The helium atom, in turn, consists of two neutrons and two protons, which make up the atomic nucleus, around which two electrons revolve. The most interesting thing is that the only absolutely indivisible here is electron.

An interesting moment of the quantum world

How less the mass of an elementary particle, the more she takes up space. It is for this reason that electrons, which are 2000 times lighter than a proton, occupy much more space compared to the nucleus of an atom.

Neutrons and protons belong to the group of so-called hadrons(particles subject to strong interaction), and to be even more precise, baryons.

Hadrons can be divided into groups
  • Baryons, which are made up of three quarks
  • Mesons, which consist of a pair: particle-antiparticle

The neutron, as its name implies, is neutrally charged, and can be divided into two down quarks and one up quark. The proton, a positively charged particle, is divided into one down quark and two up quarks.

Yes, yes, I'm not kidding, they are really called upper and lower. It would seem that if we discovered the top and bottom quarks, and even the electron, we would be able to describe the entire Universe with their help. But this statement would be very far from the truth.

the main problem The particles must somehow interact with each other. If the world consisted only of this trinity (neutron, proton and electron), then the particles would simply fly through the vast expanses of space and would never gather into larger formations, like hadrons.

Fermions and Bosons

Quite a long time ago, scientists invented a convenient and concise form of representation of elementary particles, called the standard model. It turns out that all elementary particles are divided into fermions, of which all matter is composed, and bosons that carry different kinds interactions between fermions.

The difference between these groups is very clear. The fact is that according to the laws of the quantum world, fermions need some space to survive, and for bosons, the presence of free space is almost not important.

Fermions

A group of fermions, as already mentioned, creates visible matter around us. Whatever we see anywhere is created by fermions. Fermions are divided into quarks, which interact strongly with each other and are trapped inside more complex particles like hadrons, and leptons, which freely exist in space independently of their counterparts.

Quarks are divided into two groups.

  • Top type. Top quarks, with a charge of +2/3, include: up, charm and true quarks
  • Lower type. Down-type quarks, with a charge of -1\3, include: down, strange and charm quarks
True and lovely are the largest quarks, while up and down are the smallest. Why were quarks given such unusual names, and more correctly, “flavors”, is still a subject of controversy for scientists.

Leptons are also divided into two groups.

  • The first group, with a charge of "-1", includes: an electron, a muon (heavier particle) and a tau particle (the most massive)
  • The second group, with a neutral charge, contains: electron neutrino, muon neutrino and tau neutrino
Neutrino is a small particle of matter, which is almost impossible to detect. Its charge is always 0.

The question arises whether physicists will find several more generations of particles that will be even more massive than the previous ones. It is difficult to answer it, but theorists believe that the generations of leptons and quarks are limited to three.

Don't find any similarities? Both quarks and leptons are divided into two groups, which differ from each other in charge per unit? But more on that later...

Bosons

Without them, fermions would fly around the universe in a continuous stream. But exchanging bosons, fermions tell each other some kind of interaction. The bosons themselves practically do not interact with each other.
In fact, some bosons still interact with each other, but this will be discussed in more detail in the following articles on the problems of the microcosm.

The interaction transmitted by bosons is:

  • electromagnetic, particles - photons. These massless particles transmit light.
  • strong nuclear, particles are gluons. With their help, quarks from the nucleus of an atom do not decay into separate particles.
  • Weak nuclear, particles are ±W and Z bosons. With their help, fermions are transferred by mass, energy, and can turn into each other.
  • gravitational , particles - gravitons. An extremely weak force on the scale of the microcosm. Becomes visible only on supermassive bodies.
A reservation about gravitational interaction.
The existence of gravitons has not yet been experimentally confirmed. They exist only in the form of a theoretical version. In the standard model, in most cases, they are not considered.

That's it, the standard model is assembled.

Trouble has just begun

Despite the very beautiful representation of the particles in the diagram, two questions remain. Where do particles get their mass and what is Higgs boson, which stands out from the rest of the bosons.

In order to understand the idea of ​​using the Higgs boson, we need to refer to quantum theory fields. talking plain language, it can be argued that the whole world, the whole Universe, does not consist of the smallest particles, but of many different fields: gluon, quark, electronic, electromagnetic, etc. In all these fields, slight fluctuations constantly occur. But we perceive the strongest of them as elementary particles. Yes, and this thesis is highly controversial. From the point of view of corpuscular-wave dualism, the same object of the microcosm in different situations behaves either like a wave, or like an elementary particle, it depends only on how it is more convenient for a physicist observing the process to model the situation.

Higgs field
It turns out that there is a so-called Higgs field, the average of which does not want to go to zero. As a result, this field tries to take some constant non-zero value throughout the Universe. The field makes up the ubiquitous and constant background, as a result of which the Higgs Boson appears as a result of strong fluctuations.
And it is thanks to the Higgs field that particles are endowed with mass.
The mass of an elementary particle depends on how strongly it interacts with the Higgs field constantly flying inside it.
And it is because of the Higgs boson, or rather because of its field, that the standard model has so many similar groups of particles. The Higgs field forced the creation of many additional particles, such as neutrinos.

Results

What I have been told are the most superficial concepts about the nature of the Standard Model and why we need the Higgs Boson. Some scientists still hope deep down that a particle found in 2012 that looks like the Higgs boson at the LHC was just a statistical error. After all, the Higgs field breaks many of the beautiful symmetries of nature, making the calculations of physicists more confusing.
Some even believe that the standard model is living its life. last years because of its imperfection. But this has not been experimentally proven, and the standard model of elementary particles remains a valid example of the genius of human thought.

On the scale of the microworld, the difference between particles of matter and particles (quanta) of the field is actually lost, therefore, in accordance with the currently generally accepted standard model all elementary particles known today are divided into two large classes: particles - sources of interactions and particles - carriers of interactions (Fig. 8.1). Particles of the first class, in turn, are divided into two groups, differing in that the particles of the first group - hadrons 1 - participate in all four fundamental interactions, including strong ones, and particles of the second group - leptons- do not participate in strong interactions. Hadrons include a lot of different elementary particles, most of which have their own "twin" - antiparticle. As a rule, these are rather massive particles with a short lifetime. The exception is nucleons, and it is believed that the lifetime of a proton exceeds the age of the Universe. Leptons are six elementary particles: electron e, muon and taon, as well as three related neutrino e,   and   . In addition, each of these particles also has its "double" - the corresponding antiparticle. All leptons are so similar to each other in terms of some specific properties on the scale of the microcosm that the muon and taon could be called heavy electrons, and neutrinos - electrons that have "lost" their charge and mass. At the same time, unlike electrons, muons and taons are radioactive, and all neutrinos interact extremely weakly with matter and are therefore so elusive that, for example, their flux passes through the Sun practically unabated. Note that neutrinos Lately attract great interest, especially in connection with the problems of cosmology, since it is believed that a significant part of the mass of the Universe is concentrated in neutrino flows.

As for hadrons, relatively recently, about 30 years ago, physicists groped for another "floor" in their structure. The Standard Model under consideration assumes that all hadrons are a superposition of several quarks And antiquarks. Quarks differ in properties, many of which have no analogues in the macrocosm. Different quarks are denoted by letters of the Latin alphabet: u ("up"), d ("down"), c ("charm"), b ("beauty"), s ("strange"), t ("truth"). Besides,

Fig.8.1. Standard Model of Elementary Particles

each of the listed quarks can exist in three states, which are called " color": "blue", "green" and "red". Recently, it has become common to talk about aroma" quark - this is the name of all its parameters that do not depend on the "color". Of course, all these terms have nothing to do with the usual meanings of the corresponding words. These quite scientific terms designate physical characteristics, which, as a rule, cannot be given a macroscopic interpretation. It is assumed that quarks have a fractional electric charge (-e/3 and +2e/3, where e = 1.6  10 -19 C is the electron charge) and interact with each other with a "force" that increases with distance. Therefore, quarks cannot be "torn apart", they cannot exist separately from each other 1 . In a certain sense, quarks are "real", "true" elementary particles for the hadronic form of matter. The theory that describes the behavior and properties of quarks is called quantum chromodynamics.

Particles - carriers of interactions include eight gluons(from English word glue - glue), responsible for the strong interactions of quarks and antiquarks, photon, which carries out electromagnetic interaction, intermediate bosons, which are exchanged by weakly interacting particles, and graviton, which takes part in the universal gravitational interaction between all particles.

All matter consists of quarks, leptons and particles - carriers of interactions.

The standard model today is called the theory that best reflects our understanding of the source material from which the universe was originally built. It also describes exactly how matter is formed from these basic components, and the forces and mechanisms of interaction between them.

From a structural point of view, elementary particles that make up atomic nuclei ( nucleons), and in general all heavy particles - hadrons (baryons And mesons) - consist of even simpler particles, which are usually called fundamental. In this role, the truly fundamental primary elements of matter are quarks, whose electric charge is equal to 2/3 or –1/3 of the unit positive charge of the proton. The most common and lightest quarks are called top And lower and denote, respectively, u(from English up) And d(down). Sometimes they are called proton And neutron quark due to the fact that the proton consists of a combination uud, and the neutron udd. The top quark has a charge of 2/3; lower - negative charge -1/3. Since the proton consists of two up and one down quarks, and the neutron consists of one up and two down quarks, you can independently verify that the total charge of the proton and neutron turns out to be strictly equal to 1 and 0, and make sure that the Standard Model adequately describes reality in this . The other two pairs of quarks are part of more exotic particles. Quarks from the second pair are called enchanted - c(from charmed) And strange - s(from strange). The third pair is true - t(from truth, or in English. traditions top) And Beautiful - b(from beauty, or in English. traditions bottom) quarks. Almost all particles predicted by the Standard Model and consisting of various combinations of quarks have already been discovered experimentally.

Another building set consists of bricks called leptons. The most common of the leptons - long known to us electron, which is part of the structure of atoms, but does not participate in nuclear interactions, being limited to interatomic ones. In addition to it (and its paired antiparticle called positron) leptons include heavier particles - the muon and the tau lepton with their antiparticles. In addition, each lepton is assigned its own uncharged particle with zero (or practically zero) rest mass; such particles are called, respectively, electron, muon or taon neutrino.

So, leptons, like quarks, also form three "family pairs". Such a symmetry has not escaped the observant eyes of theorists, but no convincing explanation has yet been offered for it. Be that as it may, quarks and leptons are the basic building blocks of the universe.

To understand the flip side of the coin - the nature of the forces of interaction between quarks and leptons - you need to understand how modern theoretical physicists interpret the very concept of force. An analogy will help us with this. Imagine two boatmen rowing on opposite courses on the River Cam in Cambridge. One rower out of generosity decided to treat a colleague with champagne and, when they sailed past each other, threw him a full bottle of champagne. As a result of the law of conservation of momentum, when the first rower threw the bottle, the course of his boat deviated from the rectilinear course in the opposite direction, and when the second rower caught the bottle, its momentum was transferred to him, and the second boat also deviated from the rectilinear course, but in the opposite direction. Thus, as a result of the exchange of champagne, both boats changed direction. According to the laws of Newtonian mechanics, this means that a force interaction has occurred between the boats. But the boats did not come into direct contact with each other, did they? Here we both see visually and understand intuitively that the force of interaction between the boats was transferred by the carrier of the impulse - a bottle of champagne. Physicists would call it carrier of interaction.

In exactly the same way, force interactions between particles occur through the exchange of particles-carriers of these interactions. In fact, we distinguish between the fundamental forces of interaction between particles only insofar as different particles act as carriers of these interactions. There are four such interactions: strong(this is what keeps the quarks inside the particles), electromagnetic, weak(which is what leads to some form of radioactive decay) and gravitational. Carriers of strong color interaction are gluons, which have neither mass nor electric charge. This type of interaction is described by quantum chromodynamics. Electromagnetic interaction occurs through the exchange of quanta electromagnetic radiation, which are called photons and also devoid of mass . Weak interaction, on the contrary, is transmitted by massive vector or gauge bosons, which "weigh" 80-90 times more than a proton - in laboratory conditions they were first discovered only in the early 1980s. Finally, the gravitational interaction is transmitted through the exchange of non-self-mass gravitons- these intermediaries have not yet been experimentally detected.

Within the framework of the Standard Model, the first three types of fundamental interactions have been unified, and they are no longer considered separately, but are considered three different manifestations of the force of a single nature. Returning to the analogy, suppose that another pair of rowers, passing each other on the River Cam, exchanged not a bottle of champagne, but only a glass of ice cream. From this boat will also deviate from the course in opposite sides, but much weaker. To an outside observer, it may seem that in these two cases, between the boats acted different forces: in the first case, there was an exchange of liquid (I suggest not to take into account the bottle, since most of us are interested in its contents), and in the second - a solid body (ice cream). Now imagine that in Cambridge that day there was a rare northern places summer heat, and the ice cream melted in flight. That is, some increase in temperature is enough to understand that, in fact, the interaction does not depend on whether the liquid or solid body acts as its carrier. The only reason, according to which it seemed to us that different forces act between the boats, consisted in the external difference of the ice cream carrier, caused by an insufficient temperature for its melting. Raise the temperature - and the forces of interaction will appear visually united.

The forces acting in the Universe also fuse together at high energies (temperatures) of interaction, after which it is impossible to distinguish them. First unite(this is how it is usually called) weak nuclear and electromagnetic interactions. As a result, we get the so-called electroweak interaction observed even in the laboratory at energies developed by modern particle accelerators. In the early Universe, the energies were so high that in the first 10-10 seconds after the Big Bang there was no line between the weak nuclear and electromagnetic forces. Only after the average temperature of the Universe dropped to 10 14 K did all four force interactions observed today separate and take on a modern form. While the temperature was above this mark, only three fundamental forces acted: strong, combined electroweak and gravitational interactions.

The unification of the electroweak and strong nuclear interactions occurs at temperatures of the order of 10 27 K. Under laboratory conditions, such energies are currently unattainable. The most powerful accelerator currently under construction on the border of France and Switzerland, the Large Hadron Collider (Large Hadron Collider) will be able to accelerate particles to energies that are only 0.000000001% of what is needed to combine the electroweak and strong nuclear interactions. So, probably, we will have to wait a long time for experimental confirmation of this association. There are no such energies in the modern Universe, however, in the first 10–35 from its existence, the temperature of the Universe was above 10 27 K, and only two forces acted in the Universe - electrostrong and gravitational interaction. Theories describing these processes are called "Great Unification Theories" (GUTs). It is not possible to directly test the TVO, but they also give certain predictions about processes occurring at lower energies. To date, all TVO predictions for relatively low temperatures and energies are confirmed experimentally.

So, the Standard Model, in a generalized form, is a theory of the structure of the Universe, in which matter consists of quarks and leptons, and strong, electromagnetic and weak interactions between them are described by grand unification theories. Such a model is obviously not complete because it does not include gravity. Presumably, a more complete theory will eventually be developed ( cm. Universal Theories), and today the Standard Model is the best of what we have.

"Elements"

Standard Model of Fundamental Interactions

in elementary particle physics.

Fundamental interactions.

By modern ideas, all currently known processes are reduced to 4 types of interactions, which are called fundamental (Table 1).

Table 1. Fundamental interactions.

interactions (field)

Constant

interactions

interactions

characteristic

Particles - carriers

(field quanta)

Name

gravitational

Graviton (?)

10 -17 ... 10 -18 m

W + , W - - bosons

Z 0 - boson

electromagnetic

10 -14 ... 10 -15 m

In quantum physics, each elementary particle is a quantum of some field, and vice versa, each field has its own particle-quantum. The energy and momentum of each field are composed of many separate portions - quanta. The simplest and best studied example is the electromagnetic field and its quantum, the photon. The quanta of the field of strong interactions are gluons. Quanta of the field of weak interactions - gauge bosons W ± And Z 0 . All these particles have been discovered experimentally, and their properties have been well studied. The carrier of the gravitational interaction is the graviton: a hypothetical particle that has not yet been experimentally detected. Field carrier quanta have integer spin, i.e. are Bose particles (bosons), which is reflected in the names of some of them.

modern accelerators. All modern accelerators are colliders (that is, they use colliding beams).

Table 2. Largest accelerators.

Accelerator name

accelerated particles

Maximum energies

Starting year

Accelerating chamber length

proton-antiproton

(linear)

electron-positron

electron-positron

100 + 100 GeV

Switzerland

electron-proton

30 GeV + 920 GeV

Germany

electron-positron

proton - proton

Switzerland

(linear)

electron-positron

500 + 500 GeV

under construction

Germany

proton - proton

under construction

Due to the fact that quarks and gluons interact with each other more strongly than electrons and positrons, and also because the energies of proton-proton accelerators are greater, much more events occur in proton-proton collisions than in electron collisions. There are pros and cons to this; the disadvantages are that it is more difficult to isolate the desired reactions. Therefore, proton-proton colliders are called discovery machines, and electron-positron colliders are called precise measurement machines.

standard model.

To date, a quantum description of three of the four fundamental interactions has been developed: strong, electromagnetic and weak, and it has also been shown that the weak and electromagnetic interactions actually have a common origin (electroweak interaction). Coincidence with experiment is observed up to distances of 10 -18 m, which is the limit for modern experimental technology. Therefore, the theory of three non-gravitational interactions, including 12 fundamental particles that participate in them (Table 2), is called standard model physics of elementary particles.

Table 3. Fundamental particles.

Mass, MeV

Mass, MeV

Mass, MeV

Electron

Electronic neutrino

Muon neutrino

Thaon neutrino

Symmetry and invariance.

In the case when the state of the system does not change as a result of any transformation, the system is said to have symmetry with respect to this transformation. The concept of symmetry is very important in elementary particle physics, because each type of symmetry has its own conservation law and vice versa: each conservation law of any physical quantity has its own symmetry. The connection between the symmetry of time and space with respect to shifts (homogeneity) and rotations (isotropy) with the laws of conservation of energy, momentum and angular momentum is well known. These laws are universal, i.e. performed in all types of interactions.

In addition to these well-known types of symmetries, there are so-called "internal symmetries", which in elementary particle physics are called "gauge symmetries (or invariances)" . In quantum physics, there is a gauge invariance to a change in the phase of the wave function, since there is no way to determine the absolute value of the phase of this function. In other words, quantum mechanics is invariant under an arbitrary change in the phase of the wave function by a constant value, i.e. substitutions ψ on ψ· exp(i) given that = const. This is the so-called "global gauge symmetry" regarding the change in the phase of the wave function by the same amount at once in all space and at all times. This invariance is obvious, because factor exp(i) when the modified wave function is substituted into the Schrödinger equation

can be shortened.

If the phase is not equal to a constant, but is an arbitrary function of coordinates and time, then such a transformation is called local. When replacing ψ on ψ· exp(i(r, t)) the Schrödinger equation will, of course, change, but it can be kept unchanged if a compensating field is introduced into it: a four-dimensional vector ( φ (r, t), A (r, t)), which is a combination of scalar and vector potentials of the electromagnetic field, the quanta of which are photons. This is the main idea of ​​the quantum description of the electromagnetic interaction (QED).

Higgs boson.

A similar idea is used to construct a theory of all interactions, and the corresponding kind of symmetry is called "local gauge invariance". However, this raises a problem. A mandatory requirement for equations for any physical field is invariance with respect to Lorentz transformations. And this is only true if the mass of the field quantum is zero. Table 1 shows that the quanta of the electromagnetic, strong and gravitational fields are massless (i.e., have zero rest mass), but the carrier quanta of weak interactions have rather large masses. The same problem arises when explaining the mass values ​​of other elementary particles. We can say that internal symmetries forbid elementary particles to have non-zero rest masses, which, of course, contradicts the experimental data. This question - about explaining the different values ​​of the masses of elementary particles - remained until recently unresolved in the standard model.

To explain this contradiction, in 1964 F. Englert and R. Brout, and independently of them, P. Higgs almost simultaneously suggested that there is another field, the interaction with which gives mass of particles. P. Higgs, in addition, predicted the existence of a quantum in this field - a boson with a spin equal to zero, therefore the hypothetical quantum of this field was called the "Higgs boson". The mass of this particle, according to estimates made at that time, should be in the range from 60 to 1000 GeV. Accelerators that could detect a particle with such a mass did not exist until recently, so the Higgs boson remained the only Standard Model particle not yet discovered experimentally.

At a seminar at CERN on July 4, 2012, the discovery of a new particle was announced, the properties of which, as the authors of the discovery cautiously declare, correspond to the expected properties of the theoretically predicted Higgs boson - the elementary boson of the Standard Model of particle physics. This new particle (the designation H is adopted for it) has no electric charge. The boson mass according to the data of one group of experiments is (125.3 ± 0.9) GeV, according to the data of another group (126.0 ± 0.8) GeV. The H boson is unstable, its lifetime is about 10 -24 s, and it can decay in different ways. Decays into two photons and into two pairs: an electron-positron and (or) a muon-antimuon were observed at the LHC:

H→γ+γ,

He - + e + + e - + e + ,

He - + e + + μ - + μ + ,

Hμ - + μ + + μ - + μ + .

The last three decays can be briefly written as

H→ 4l,

Where l- one of the leptons (electron, positron, muon). All of these decays are consistent with the predicted properties of the Higgs boson.

All this allows us to state with a high probability that the Higgs boson has been discovered, and the Standard Model has received fundamentally important experimental confirmation.

Literature.

    Physical Encyclopedia, v.5 / Ch. ed. A.M. Prokhorov. - M.: Bolshaya Russian Encyclopedia, 1998. - p. 596-608.

    Kapitonov I.M. Introduction to nuclear and particle physics. - M.: URSS, 2002.

    Rubakov V.A. To the discovery at the Large Hadron Collider of a new particle with the properties of the Higgs boson. - UFN, 2012, vol. 182, No. 10. - p.1017-1025.

    Rubakov V.A. The long-awaited discovery of the Higgs boson. - Science and Life, 2012, No. 10. - p.2-17.

    Physical Encyclopedia, v.4 / Ch. ed. A.M. Prokhorov. - M.: Great Russian Encyclopedia, 1994. - p. 505-520.

    Physics of the microworld: Little Encyclopedia / Ch. ed. D.V.Shirkov. - M.: " Soviet Encyclopedia", 1980.

    Green B. Elegant Universe. / Per. from English. ed. V.O. Malyshenko. - Ed. 2nd. - M.: Editorial URSS, 2005. - 288 p.

    Arinstein E.A. Elements of Theoretical Physics: Textbook. - Tyumen, Publishing House of the Tyumen State University, 2011. - p.103-105.

The Standard Model of particle physics, or simply the Standard Model, is a theoretical framework in physics that most accurately and successfully describes the current position of elementary particles, their values ​​and behavior. The Standard Model is not, and does not claim to be, a "theory of everything" because it does not explain dark matter, dark energy, and does not include gravity. Constant confirmations of the Standard Model, in spite of the alternative model of supersymmetry, appear at the Large Hadron Collider. However, not all physicists love the Standard Model and wish it a speedy demise, because this could potentially lead to the development of a more general theory of everything, the explanation of black holes and dark matter, the unification of gravity, quantum mechanics and the general theory of relativity.

If particle physicists get their way, new accelerators could one day scrutinize the most curious subatomic particle in physics, the Higgs boson. Six years after the discovery of this particle at the Large Hadron Collider, physicists are planning huge new machines that will stretch for tens of kilometers in Europe, Japan or China.

Not so long ago, scientists started talking about a new cosmological model known as “Higgsogenesis” (Higgsogenesis). A paper describing the new model has been published in the journal Physical Review Lettres. The term "higgsogenesis" refers to the first appearance of Higgs particles in the early universe, just as baryogenesis refers to the appearance of baryons (protons and neutrons) in the first moments after the Big Bang. And although baryogenesis is a fairly well-studied process, hyggsogenesis remains purely hypothetical.