Gravity and electroweak sector from symmetry breaking of an $SO(3,3)$ BF theory
Abstract
An BF-type gauge theory is formulated on a six-dimensional spacetime of split signature , interpreted as the pre-electroweak-symmetry-breaking phase. A MacDowell--Mansouri-type symmetry breaking to is implemented, and the corresponding stabilizer and coset structures are computed. The curvature decomposes into chiral sectors, and effective tetrads are introduced using components of the higher-dimensional connection. The resulting left and right sectors are formulated as constrained BF/Plebanski-like theories with appropriate simplicity and reality conditions. The six-dimensional theory yields two overlapping four-dimensional Lorentzian sectors of opposite signature, related via gluing constraints across their intersection. In the first sector, the selfdual two-forms () satisfy simplicity constraints that select the non-degenerate branch and reproduce Einstein gravity. Subsequently, the breaking pattern is outlined which admits an ultra-soft regime consistent with current phenomenological bounds under sufficiently suppressed couplings. In the second sector, the antiself dual two-forms () satisfy analogous simplicity constraints, realizing weak gauge dynamics as gravity on the opposite-signature sector. Subsequently, the electroweak symmetry is realized within the Yang--Mills branch of the BF theory which incorporates the standard Higgs mechanism , recovering the conventional electroweak , , and photon spectrum.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2602.19151,
title = {Gravity and electroweak sector from symmetry breaking of an $SO(3,3)$ BF theory},
author = {P Samuel Wesley and Tejinder P. Singh and J. M. Isidro},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.19151},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
88 pages; refs. updated; appendix added