Can you accomplish this in theory? We found the Higgs boson, but can we remove it from particles?
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5The questioner must first understand how the Higgs field gives mass to particles: http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/31938/please-explain-me-how-the-higgs-boson-gives-mass-to-other-particles-more-detail?rq=1 – Dmitry Brant Feb 28 '13 at 21:26
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1The Higgs field (in theory) exists everywhere so you can't remove it from anywhere. (i think) – raindrop Mar 01 '13 at 00:55
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so removing it would make you have no mass right? – codegeek511 Mar 01 '13 at 03:33
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Related: http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/31395/2451 – Qmechanic Aug 15 '13 at 07:02
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There are two separate questions here. If we take the second part of your question first:
to make it have no mass?
Only a small percentage of the mass of an atom is due to the Higgs coupling. Most of it originates from the quark binding energy of the protons and neutrons nucleus. So even if we could somehow turn off the Higgs field we wouldn't change the mass of an atom very much. It would make the electrons massless, which wouldn't be great for the stability of any affected objects, but it wouldn't change the total mass very much as most of the mass is in the protons and neutrons.
On to the first part:
Is it possible to remove the Higgs Field
As far as we know there is no way to screen out the Higgs field or change the couplings of the elementary particles to the Higgs field. It is possible to make particles massless by heating your system enough to restore the broken Electro-Weak symmetry, but since this requires heating matter to 1,000,000,000,000,000 degrees we aren't going to be doing this on a macroscopic scale any time soon.
John Rennie
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2I regret the question was closed! It is may be not very well formulated but this answer by @John rennie is pretty clear and helpful for high-school teachers trying to have fun with their students and to enquire about some zeptotechnology to handle the Higgs field http://profmattstrassler.com/2013/08/29/light-hearted-higgs-questions-from-a-high-school-teacher/ ;-) – laboussoleestmonpays Aug 30 '13 at 08:45