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 anomalies. We minimize a number of Higgs potentials that break gauge groups to discrete symmetries of interest, and examine their scalar mass spectra.
The concept of spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) generally lacks a simple and intuitive introduction in the literature. This gap is filled by defining SSB in a universal context beyond its usual applications in physics and by discussing some very simple, but stunning examples of the phenomenon.
Non-Abelian discrete family symmetries play a pivotal role in the formulation of models with tri-bimaximal lepton mixing. We discuss how to obtain symmetries such as A4, semidirect product of Z7 and Z3, and Delta(27) from an underlying SU(3) gauge symmetry. Higher irreducible representations are required to achieve the spontaneous breaking of the continuous group. We present methods of identifying the required vacuum alignments and discuss in detail the symmetry breaking potentials.
It is proposed that an event that constitutes a quantum measurement corresponds to the spontaneous breaking of a symmetry in the measuring device over time.
Goldstone's theorem states that there is a massless mode for each broken symmetry generator. It has been known for a long time that the naive generalization of this counting fails to give the correct number of massless modes for spontaneously broken spacetime symmetries. We explain how to get the right count of massless modes in the general case, and discuss examples involving spontaneously broken Poincare and conformal invariance.
A nonperturbative approach for spontaneous symmetry breaking is proposed. It is based on some properties of interacting field operators. As the consequences an additional terms like to m^2 A^2 appears in the initial Lagrangian.
We study the question of whether spontaneous U(1)_R breaking can occur in O'Raifeartaigh-type models of spontaneous supersymmetry breaking. We show that in order for it to occur, there must be a field in the theory with R-charge different from 0 or 2. We construct the simplest O'Raifeartaigh model with this property, and we find that for a wide range of parameters, it has a meta-stable vacuum where U(1)_R is spontaneously broken. This suggests that spontaneous U(1)_R breaking actually occurs in generic O'Raifeartaigh models.
Elitzur's theorem stating the impossibility of spontaneous breaking of local symmetries in a gauge theory is reexamined. The existing proofs of this theorem rely on gauge invariance as well as positivity of the weight in the Euclidean partition function. We examine the validity of Elitzur's theorem in gauge theories for which the Euclidean measure of the partition function is not positive definite. We find that Elitzur's theorem does not follow from gauge invariance alone. We formulate a general criterion under which spontaneous breaking of local symmetries in a gauge theory is excluded. Final…
We show how translational invariance can be broken by the vacuum that drives the spontaneous symmetry breaking of extra-dimensional extensions of the Standard Model, when delta-like interactions between brane and bulk scalar fields are present. We explicitly build some examples of vacuum configurations, which induce the spontaneous symmetry breaking, and have non trivial profile in the extra coordinate.
We discuss the spontaneous supersymetry breaking within the low-energy effective supergravity action of four-dimensional superstrings. In particular, we emphasize the non-universality of the soft supersymmetry breaking parameters, the $μ$-problem and the duality symmetries.
A very simple mechanism is proposed that stabilizes the orbifold geometry within the context of the Randall-Sundrum proposal for solving the hierarchy problem. The electroweak TeV scale is generated from the Planck scale by spontaneous breaking of the orbifold symmetry
We present a new picture of global symmetry breaking in quantum field theory and propose a novel realization of symmetry breaking phenomena in terms of the conserved charge associated with its symmetry. In particular, the fermion condensate of the vacuum state is examined when the spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking takes place. It is shown that the fermion condensate of the vacuum vanishes if the system is solved exactly, and therefore we cannot make use of the Goldstone theorem. As a perfect example, we present the Bethe ansatz vacuum of the Thirring model which shows the spontaneous chiral…
We study the compatibility of spontaneous breaking of parity and successful cosmology in a left-right symmetric model where supersymmetry breaking is achieved in metastable vacua. We show that domain walls formed due to this breaking can be removed due to Planck scale suppressed terms, provided the parity breaking scale $M_R$ is constrained to remain smaller than $10^{10}-10^{11}$ GeV. Ensuring metastability is achieved naturally even if the entire mechanism operates at low scales, within a few orders of magnitude of the TeV scale. Taking $M_R$ as high as permitted, close to the acceptable reh…
The convexity of a scalar effective potential is a well known property, and, in the situation of spontaneous symmetry breaking, leads to the so-called Maxwell construction, characterised by a flat effective potential between the minima of the bare potential. Simple derivations are given here, which show how linear effective potentials arise from non-trivial saddles points which dominate the partition function, for a self-interacting scalar field and for a Yukawa model.
My recent fit of the light scalar mesons is discussed in the light of the U3 x U3 linear sigma model. The argument for why there exists a light and broad sigma meson is explained in more detail, and the mechanism of spontaneous symmetry breaking is discussed.
We examine generalized O'Raifeartaigh models that feature multiple tree-level flat directions and only contain fields with R-charges 0 or 2. We show that spontaneous R-breaking at up to one-loop order is impossible in such theories. Specifically, we prove that the R-symmetric origin of field space is always a local minimum of the one-loop Coleman-Weinberg potential, generalizing an earlier result for the case of a single flat direction. This result has consequences for phenomenology and helps elucidate the behavior of various models of dynamical SUSY breaking.
We study spontaneous supersymmetry breaking in N=2 globally supersymmetric theories describing a system of abelian vector multiplets. We find that the most general form of the action admits, in addition to the usual Fayet-Iliopoulos term, a magnetic Fayet-Iliopoulos term for the auxiliary components of dual vector multiplets. In a generic case, N=2 supersymmetry is broken down spontaneously to N=1. In some cases however, the scalar potential can drive the theory towards a N=2 supersymmetric ground state where massless dyons condense in the vacuum.
We present a class of models in which the dark matter stabilization symmetry is generated by spontaneous symmetry breaking. These models naturally correlate the dark and electroweak symmetry breaking scales. The result is a generic mechanism linking the annihilation cross section for thermally populated dark matter with the weak scale. The thermal relic abundance, sensitivity to major precision electroweak observables and additional LHC signatures are also presented.
I summarize the development of the ideas of Spontaneous symmetry breaking in the 1960s with an outline of the Guralnik, Hagen, Kibble (GHK) paper and include comments on the relationship of this paper to those of Brout, Englert and Higgs. I include some pictures from my "physics family album which might be of some amusement value".
The study of a EW theory without spontaneous symmetry breaking is presented. A new symmetry breaking, axial-vector symmetry breaking, is found. M^{2}_{W}=1/2g^{2}m^{2}_{t}, m^{2}_{Z}=ρm^{2}_{W}/cos^{2} θ, and G_{F}=1/(2\sqrt{2}m^{2}_{t}) are obtained and they agree with data. It has been proved that the theory is renormalizable and unitary.
I discuss historical material about the beginning of the ideas of spontaneous symmetry breaking and particularly the role of the Guralnik, Hagen Kibble paper in this development. I do so adding a touch of some more modern ideas about the extended solution-space of quantum field theory resulting from the intrinsic nonlinearity of non-trivial interactions.
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 the one hand, we show that the corresponding field degrees of freedom have the same symmetry transformation properties as massive, matter fields. The "inverse Higgs constraints", sometimes employed to eliminate these modes from the theory, are reinterpreted as giving a field parametrization that makes these transformation properties manifest. On the other h…
We study two-dimensional QED with unequal charges at finite temperature, and show that there is a phase with a spontaneously broken $Z_n$ symmetry. In spite of this, we were not able to establish the presence of domain walls. The relevance for QCD in higher dimensions is discussed.
If supersymmetry is realized with spontaneous breaking of R-parity, there will be important consequences in several different areas which can be tested through different types of experiments. In this talk we review the phenomenological implications of these theories, with special emphasis on new signals at the present and future accelerators.
We show that a model where both CP and R-parity are spontaneously broken exists. We study the electroweak symmetry breaking sector of the model and find minima consistent with experimentally viable Higgs boson masses. We also demonstrate that one can obtain neutrino masses and mixing angles within measured values.
In this introductory lecture, some basic features of the spontaneous symmetry breaking are discussed. More specifically, $σ$-model, non-linear realization, and some examples of spontaneous symmetry breaking in the non-relativistic system are discussed in details. The approach here is more pedagogical than rigorous and the purpose is to get some simple explanation of some useful topics in this rather wide area. .
We provide a theoretical justification for the existence of fourth family fermions of the Standard Model by showing that in a novel form of spontaneous $CP$ breaking, fourth family is inevitable. This requires that fermions of third and fourth families must be mirror matter conjectured long back by Lee and Yang.
One common way to define spontaneous symmetry breaking involves explicit symmetry breaking. This definition can be used in any approach to Effective Field Theory, from perturbation theory to lattice simulations. It allows us to study the spontaneous breakdown of global symmetries without assuming that the local gauge symmetry is spontaneously broken. This is important since perturbation theory is insufficient to study extended Higgs sectors: it is insufficient to predict the physical spectrum of the SU(5) Grand Unified Theory (Georgi-Glashow) or to predict the spontaneous breakdown of global s…
Using a four fermion interaction Lagrangian, we demonstrate that the spontaneous breaking of vector symmetries requires the existence of a light (comparing with the heavy fermion mass) scalar particle and the low energy effective theory (the $σ$ model) obtained after integrating out heavy fermion degrees of freedom is asymptotically a renormalizable one. When applying the idea to the electroweak symmetry breaking sector of the standard model, the Higgs particle's mass is of the order of the electroweak scale: $185 GeV /\sqrt{N_c} < m_H < 720 GeV /\sqrt{N_c}$ where $N_c$ is the color degrees of…
Supersymmetric Slavnov-Taylor and Ward identities are investigated in presence of soft and spontaneous symmetry breaking. We consider an abelian model where soft supersymmetry breaking yields a mass splitting between electron and selectron and triggers spontaneous symmetry breaking, and we derive corresponding identities that relate the electron and selectron masses with the Yukawa coupling. We demonstrate that the identities are valid in dimensional reduction and invalid in dimensional regularization and compute the necessary symmetry-restoring counterterms.
Generally speaking, the existence of a superluminal neutrino can be attributed either to re-entrant Lorentz violation at ultralow energy from intrinsic Lorentz violation at ultrahigh energy or to spontaneous breaking of fundamental Lorentz invariance (possibly by the formation of a fermionic condensate). Re-entrant Lorentz violation in the neutrino sector has been discussed elsewhere. Here, the focus is on mechanisms of spontaneous symmetry breaking.
I report on recent work done in collaboration with M. Knecht on patterns of spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking in the large-Nc limit of QCD-like theories, and with S. Peris and M. Perrottet concerning the question of matching long and short distances in large-Nc QCD.
I present a new form of spontaneous CP violation in which, in analogy with the left-right-symmetric model, CP breaking results from the inequality of two real vacuum expectation values. In my model there is no scalar-pseudoscalar mixing, and the smallness of strong CP violation finds a natural explanation.
Tunneling in quantum field theory is well understood in the case of a single scalar field. However, in theories with spontaneous symmetry breaking, one has to take into account the additional zero modes which appear due to the Goldstone phenomenon. We calculate the false vacuum decay rate in this case. The result may differ significantly from the tunneling rates in the absence of symmetry breaking.
In supersymmetry the anomalous magnetic moment of particles belonging to the same supermultiplet is related by simple sum rules. We study the modification of these sum rules in the case of spontaneously broken N=1 global supersymmetry.
We revisit the proof provided by Vafa and Witten that there is no spontaneous parity breaking in theories with vector-like fermions. We argue that the various criticisms that have been leveled at the original proof do not invalidate it.
A new mechanism for spontaneous breaking of flavour symmetry is demonstrated. An exactly flavour symmetric model with degenerate bare nonets and with sufficiently strong tri-linear meson couplings is shown to lead to self-consistency equations which are unstable. Instead there exists a stable solution, which break flavour symmetry spontaneously in the mass spectrum. For a C-degenerate meson spectrum the stable mass spectrum obeys the Okubo-Zweig-Iizuka (OZI) rule and the approximate equal spacing rule.
It is shown that the same essentially non-semiclassical mechanism, which generates in the nonsupersymmetric pure Yang-Mills theory the binary condensate of gauge field strengths, is responsible for the spontaneous breaking of the two supersymmetries in N=2 super Yang-Mills systems. A detailed discussion is presented in ref. \cite{LBPM}
We describe one of the remarkable problems of theoretical physics persevering up to the beginning of the millennium. All gaugetheories with spontaneous gauge symmetry breaking from the standard model of particle physics with the electroweak symmetry breaking at the Fermi scale, 246 GeV, up to strings, supergravity, and the M(embrane)-theory superunification with symmetry breaking starting near the Planck scale, $10^{19}$ GeV, foresee that the spontaneous symmetry breakings induce a vacuum energy at least 50 orders of magnitude larger than the stringent experimental bound $GΛ\lesssim 10^{-122}$…
This is the introduction to the PhD thesis, defended in June 2006. In the original form it was appended with the reprints of the author's published papers, and is to be regarded as their summary. Full details may be found in the quoted papers.
We study the production of neutralinos and charginos at LEP and at a linear collider in the case of spontaneously broken R-parity. We first investigate the constraints on the single neutralino and chargino production from the LEP 1 experiments, and then we consider the production at LEP 2 and at a linear collider. We concentrate on the supersymmetric $SU(2)_L \times SU(2)_R \times U(1)_{B-L}$ model, where the spontaneous R-parity breaking is inevitable and is associated with the breaking of the LR-symmetry.
We extend to larger unification groups an earlier study exploring the possibility of unification of gauge symmetries in theories with dynamical symmetry breaking. Based on our results, we comment on the outlook for models that seek to achieve this type of unification.
We discuss the well-known phenomenon of spontaneous symmetry breaking for a linear sigma model for scalar and pseudoscalar mesons based on the meson composite structure and the normalization of the quantum states. To test our formulation and validate our approach we give another proof of the Goldstone theorem and derive the corresponding mass eigenstates of the theory. We briefly describe the possible wave function of a meson that leads to the adequate mass eigenstates.
In a model where CP is spontaneously broken, the aspon model, it is shown by extending previous arguments about B decay and the value of $Re(ε^{'}/ε)$ in the kaon system, that the neutron electric dipole moment $D_n$ is bounded from below by $D_n \geq 10^{-29}$e.-cm.
In this thesis we study top-condensation models of electroweak symmetry breaking. In particular we investigate a scenario in which the CP symmetry is broken spontaneously due to the same condensates responsible of electroweak symmetry breaking. In this way a CP violating CKM matrix, gauge boson masses, and quark masses are dynamically generated. We started with a new four-fermion interaction such that it can be rewritten using two auxiliary fields. These fields become dynamical and play a similar role as the Higgs field in the SM but being now composite.
In this work we implement the spontaneous breaking of the lepton number in the version II of the 3-3-1 models and study their phenomenological consequences. The main result of this work is that our majoron is invisible even though it belongs to a triplet representation by the 3-3-1 symmetry.
We study the spontaneous breaking of discrete symmetries in theories with broken gauge symmetry. The intended application is to CP breaking in theories with gauged flavor symmetries, but the analysis described here is preliminary. We dispense with matter fields and take the gauge theory to be weakly coupled and broken spontaneously by unspecified, short-distance forces. We develop an effective-field-theory description of the resultant low energy theory, and ask whether this theory by itself can describe the subsequent breaking of discrete symmetries. We conclude that this can happen depending …
We show that if global lepton number symmetry is spontaneously broken in a post inflation epoch, then it can lead to the formation of cosmological domain walls. This happens in the well-known "Majoron paradigm" for neutrino mass generation. We propose some realistic examples which allow spontaneous lepton number breaking to be safe from such domain walls.
We investigate the impact of charge-breaking minima on the vacuum stability of the NMSSM. We find that, in contrast to Two-Higgs-Doublet Models like the MSSM, at both tree- and loop-level there exists global charge-breaking minima. Consequently, many regions of parameter space are rendered metastable, which otherwise would have been considered stable if these charge-breaking minima were neglected. However, the inclusion of these new scalar field directions has little impact on otherwise metastable vacuum configurations.
Spontaneous collapse models aim at solving the measurement problem of quantum mechanics by introducing collapse of wave function as an ontologically objective mechanism that suppresses macroscopic superpositions. In particular, the strength of collapse depends on the mass of the system. Flavor oscillating systems such as neutral mesons feature superpositions of states of different masses and, hence, could be used to test the validity of spontaneous collapse models. Recently, it has been shown that the mass-proportional CSL model causes exponential damping of the neutral meson oscillations whic…
We discuss a model, in which the negative mass square needed in the Higgs mechanism is generated by mixing with a heavy scalar. We have two scalar doublets in the standard model. Phenomenological properties of the heavy new scalar are discussed. The heavy scalar can be detected by the LHC.
The different scenarios of spontaneous breaking of D-parity have been studied in both non-supersymmetric and supersymmetric version of the left-right symmetric models(LRSM). We explore the possibility of a TeV scale $SU(2)_R$ breaking scale $M_R$ and hence TeV scale right handed neutrinos from both minimization of the scalar potential as well as the coupling constant unification point of view. We show that although minimization of the scalar potential allows the possibility of a TeV scale $M_R$ and tiny neutrino masses in LRSM with spontaneous D-parity breaking, the gauge coupling unification …