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by tremon
23 hours ago
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I'm a bit surprised that the weightier generations of fermions are categorized as fundamentally different fields. Is this a crutch/temporary classification that we expect to be resolved with further research, or are there real indications that the apparent similarities between e.g. up/charm/top are fully independent manifestations? |
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"No idea, bro!"
It's one of the biggest open questions about the Standard Model, and it's considered an indication that the model is probably incomplete.
Btw you mentioned "weightier generations", but mass is a consequence of the difference between the generations, not the fundamental difference. Before electroweak symmetry breaking, those particles had no mass, but they already existed as three distinct generations, with different Yukawa couplings. When the Higgs field acquired a vacuum expectation value, those different couplings became different masses.
The Standard Model treats the number of generations and the Yukawa couplings as fundamental inputs to the theory. There's a Nobel Prize waiting for whoever figures out whatever might be behind this.
Even string theory doesn't solve this. Calabi-Yau manifolds provide a model which could explain it in theory, but no actual, concrete solution has been found.