Related papers: The Higgs Phenomenon in Quantum Gravity
When the electroweak action is rewritten in terms of SU(2) gauge invariant variables, the Higgs can be interpreted as a conformal metric factor. We show that asymptotic flatness of the metric is required to avoid a Gribov problem: without…
When a continuous symmetry of a physical system is spontaneously broken, two types of collective modes typically emerge: the amplitude and phase modes of the order-parameter fluctuation. For superconductors, the amplitude mode is recently…
Many models of beyond Standard Model physics connect flavor symmetry with a discrete group. Having this symmetry arise spontaneously from a gauge theory maintains compatibility with quantum gravity and can be used to systematically prevent…
We propose a gauge-invariant description for the Higgs mechanism by which a gauge boson acquires the mass. We do not need to assume spontaneous breakdown of gauge symmetry signaled by a non-vanishing vacuum expectation value of the scalar…
We explore the consequences of the mass generation due to the Higgs field in strong gravity astrophysical environments. The vacuum expectation value of the Higgs field is predicted to depend on the curvature of spacetime, potentially giving…
It has been long known that when spacetime symmetry is spontaneously broken, some of the broken generators may not give rise to independent gapless, Nambu-Goldstone excitations. We provide two complementary viewpoints of this phenomenon. On…
We construct $N=1$ supergravity models where the gauge symmetry and supersymmetry are both spontaneously broken, with naturally vanishing classical vacuum energy and unsuppressed Goldstino components along gauge non-singlet directions. We…
We examine the status of massive gauge theories, such as those usually obtained by spontaneous symmetry breakdown, from the viewpoint of causal (Epstein-Glaser) renormalization. The BRS formulation of gauge invariance in this framework,…
The Higgs field is conventionally treated as a small local perturbation atop a large, constant vacuum value that uniformly permeates the universe. I propose instead that in regions of extreme gravitational intensity -- such as near…
Several arguments suggest that an effective curved space-time structure (of the type as in General Relativity) can actually find its dynamical origin in an underlying condensed medium of spinless quanta. For this reason, we exploit the…
The fundamental Higgs doublet may be replaced in the Standard Model by certain non-perturbative four-quark interactions, whose effect is to induce a composite Higgs sector responsible for electroweak symmetry breaking. A simple composite…
The cause of the screening of the weak interactions at long distances puzzled the high-energy community for more nearly half a century. With the discovery of the Higgs boson a new era started with direct experimental information on the…
Motivated by recent work connecting Higgs phases to symmetry protected topological (SPT) phases, we investigate the interplay of gauge redundancy and global symmetry in lattice gauge theories with Higgs fields in the presence of a boundary.…
While the finite-temperature effective potential in a gauge theory is a gauge-dependent quantity, in several instances a first-order phase transition can be triggered by gauge-independent terms. A particularly interesting case occurs when…
Despite the enormous significance of the Higgs potential in the context of the Standard Model of electroweak interactions and in Grand Unified Theories, its ultimate origin is fundamentally unknown and must be introduced by hand in…
The proximity effect in hybrid superconducting - normal metal structures is shown to affect strongly the coherent oscillations of the superconducting order parameter $\Delta$ known as the Higgs modes. The standard Higgs mode at the…
We propose a mechanism of Higgsless gauge symmetry breaking with a large mass hierarchy. We consider a 5D gauge theory on an orbifold $S^1/Z_2$. The gauge symmetry is broken by orbifolding and also nontrivial boundary conditions at fixed…
The properties of the Higgs potential are determined by three parameters: the mass parameter, the quartic self-coupling, and a constant term. Remarkably, all three of these parameters seem subject to a significant amount of fine-tuning. All…
In the event symmetric approach to quantum gravity it is assumed that the fundamental laws of physics must be invariant under exchange of any two space-time events. The fact that this symmetry if obviously not observed is attributed to the…
Matter is coupled to three-dimensional gravity such that the topological phase is allowed and the (anti-) de Sitter or Poincar\'e symmetry remains intact. Spontaneous symmetry breaking to the Lorentz group occurs if a scalar field is…