What would happen to an atom with massless electrons?

Question

I've started to write a Realistic Sci-Fi novel for general fun, but I need to get some info on the Higgs Boson first. See, there is a weapon in the novel, some device that would remove the higgs field from a certain area. What would the effects of the Higgs Field being removed? What effects would those effects have? If that last sentence isn't clear, here's an example. Lets say the removal of the higgs boson made electrons massless (I've heard this before, so it isn't a coincidence if its right). What would happen to an atom with massless electrons?

Answer 1

I would like to elaborate on G.Smith's answer. Take the hydrogen atom. It exists as we have measured it and fits a quantum mechanical differential equation where the Coulomb potential , the mass of the electron, the mass of the proton are in the solutions. This gives the Hydrogen atom solutions

A massless particle cannot give these solutions , as it travels at velocity c . The electron being massless suddenly by the zeroing of the Higgs field, it would fly off to infinity according to present day understanding of physics. The quarks in the proton would also be massless, and it needs to go into lattice QCD to see how long they would last in there before they would deconfine and the whole become a quark gluon plasma. This will be extended to nuclei of atoms, which are made put of protons and neutrons.

So the space where you apply your Higgs field weapon would resemble the age after inflation in the age of the universe:

Actually at CERN they are trying to study the quark gluon plasma phase, which is the region before quark confinement, with colliding ions in the Alice experiment. There is not enough energy to reach the symmetry breaking part.

Answer 2

There is no such thing as an atom with a massless electron. The radius of such an atom is infinite, and the binding energy is zero.

All atoms and molecules would unbind into plasma if the expectation value of the Higgs field were zero.