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Catastrophe theoretic approach to the Higgs Mechanism

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2024-01-31 v2 High Energy Physics - Theory Mathematical Physics Algebraic Topology Dynamical Systems math.MP

Abstract

A geometric perspective of the Higgs Mechanism is presented. Using Thom's Catastrophe Theory, we study the emergence of the Higgs Mechanism as a discontinuous feature in a general family of Lagrangians obtained by varying its parameters. We show that the Lagrangian that exhibits the Higgs Mechanism arises as a first-order phase transition in this general family. We find that the Higgs Mechanism (as well as Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking) need not occur for a different choice of parameters of the Lagrangian, and further analysis of these unconventional parameter choices may yield interesting implications for beyond standard model physics.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2307.12042,
  title  = {Catastrophe theoretic approach to the Higgs Mechanism},
  author = {Samyak Jain and Ameeya Bhagwat},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2307.12042},
  year   = {2024}
}

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