Related papers: Unitary gauge considered harmful
The concept of (global) gauge symmetry breaking plays an important role in many areas of physics. Since the corresponding symmetry is a gauge symmetry, its breaking is actually gauge-dependent. Thus, it is possible to design gauges which…
On basis of an algebraic analysis of symmetry breaking in general and the Higgs mechanism in the standard model of elementary particles we generalize the concept of symmetry breaking to systems with non-compact groups but not necessarily…
The unitary gauge in the Higgs mechanism is to impose the condition of $\phi =\phi^\dagger $ on the Higgs fields. However, this is not the gauge fixing but simply a procedure for producing the massive vector boson fields by hand. The…
I comment critically on the use and misuse of the theory of vacuum, pseudoparticles and pseudotensors. The mathematical and phenomenological arguments against the Higgs mechanism and the inflationary scenario are presented. I conclude with…
The association of broken symmetries with phase transitions is ubiquitous in condensed matter physics: crystals break translational symmetry, magnets break rotational symmetry, and superconductors break gauge symmetry. However, despite the…
We examine a scenario where the Higgs is part of an approximate conformal field theory, and has a scaling dimension greater than one. Such an unparticle Higgs (or Unhiggs) can still break electroweak symmetry and unitarize WW scattering,…
Although gauge invariance preserves the values of physical observables, a gauge transformation can introduce important alterations of physical interpretations. To understand this, it is first shown that a gauge transformation is not, in…
The standard approach to Higgs mechanism is based on the existence of unitary gauge but, unfortunately, it does not come from a coordinate change in the configuration space of the initial model and actually defines a new dynamical system.…
We generalize the standard model of particle physics such it displays global scale invariance. The gravitational action is also suitably modified such that it respects this symmetry. This model is interesting since the cosmological constant…
We review the theoretical underpinning of the Higgs mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking and the experimental status of Higgs measurements from a pedagogical perspective. The possibilities and motivations for new physics in the…
Theories with gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking provide an interesting alternative to the scenario in which the soft terms of the low-energy fields are induced by gravity. These theories allow for a natural suppression of flavour…
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…
Non-perturbative effects of constant magnetic fields in a Higgs-Yukawa gauge model are studied using the extremum equations of the effective action for composite operators. It is found that the magnetic field induces a Higgs condensate, a…
We review the gauged quintessence scenario, wherein the quintessence scalar field responsible for dark energy is promoted to a complex field charged under a dark $U(1)$ gauge symmetry. This construction leads to new and potentially rich…
In this talk, I shall first discuss the standard model Higgs mechanism and then highlight some of its deficiencies making a case for the need to go beyond the standard model (BSM). The BSM tour will be guided by symmetry arguments. I shall…
When analysing a system consisting of both dark matter and dark energy, an often used practice in the literature is to neglect the perturbations in the dark energy component. However, it has recently been argued, through the use of…
We consider extra dimensional gauge theories on an interval. We first review the derivation of the consistent boundary conditions (BC's) from the action principle. These BC's include choices that give rise to breaking of the gauge…
In the framework of the recently proposed asymptotically finite gauge models the cosmological constant is essentially weakened by quantum effects. The next (and more general) claim is that the coupling between quantum fields may suppress…
Phenomena in gauge theory are often described in the physics literature via a specific choice of gauge. In foundational and philosophical discussions this is often criticized as introducing gauge dependence, and contrasted against (often…
Symmetry is one of the most general and useful concepts in physics. A theory or a system that has a symmetry is fundamentally constrained by it. The same constraints do not apply when the symmetry is broken. The quantitative determination…