Varying Alpha and the Electroweak Model
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
2009-11-10 v1 Astrophysics
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Abstract
Inspired by recent claims for a varying fine structure constant, alpha, we investigate the effect of ``promoting coupling constants to variables'' upon various parameters of the standard model. We first consider a toy model: Proca's theory of the massive photon. We then explore the electroweak theory with one and two dilaton fields. We find that a varying alpha unavoidably implies varying W and Z masses. This follows from gauge invariance, and is to be contrasted with Proca' theory. For the two dilaton theory the Weinberg angle is also variable, but Fermi's constant and the tree level fermion masses remain constant unless the Higgs' potential becomes dynamical. We outline some cosmological implications.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.hep-ph/0310030,
title = {Varying Alpha and the Electroweak Model},
author = {Dagny Kimberly and Joao Magueijo},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-ph/0310030},
year = {2009}
}