We study two different SU(2) gauge-scalar theories in 3 and 4 spacetime dimensions. Firstly, we focus on the 3 dimensional SU(2) theory with multiple Higgs fields in the adjoint representation, that can be mapped to cuprate systems in condensed matter physics which host a rich phase diagram including high-Tc superconductivity. It has been proposed that the theory with 4 adjoint Higgs fields can be used to explain the physics of hole-doped cuprates for a wide range of parameters. We show exploratory results on the phase diagram of the theory.
On the other hand, we are interested in the 4 dimensional theory with 2 sets of fundamental scalar (Higgs) fields, which is relevant to the 2 Higgs Doublet Model (2HDM), a proposed extension to the Standard Model of particle physics. The goal is to understand the particle spectrum of the theory at zero temperature and the electroweak phase transition at finite temperature. We present exploratory results on scale setting and the multi-parameter phase diagram of this theory.
A spectrum of localized excitations of isolated static fermions has been discovered in several different gauge Higgs theories. In lattice numerical simulations, we show that the charged elementary particles can have the spectrum of excitations in the Higgs phase of SU(3) gauge Higgs theory, $q=2$ Abelian Higgs theory, Landau-Ginzburg theory, and in chiral U(1) gauge Higgs theory. Possibly these excited states of the isolated fermions can be observed in ARPES studies of conventional superconductors. Also, we consider that similar kinds of excitations could exist in other gauge Higgs theories, s…
In SU($N$) gauge-Higgs theories, with a single Higgs field in the fundamental representation, there exists in addition to the local gauge symmetry a global SU(2) symmetry, at $N=2$, and a global U(1) symmetry, for $N \ne 2$. We construct a gauge-invariant order parameter for the breaking of these global symmetries in the Higgs sector, and calculate numerically the transition lines, in coupling-constant space, for SU(2) and SU(3) gauge theories with unimodular Higgs fields. The order parameter is non-local, and therefore its non-analyticity does not violate the theorem proved by Osterwalder and…
We study the viability of five-dimensional gauge theories as candidates for the origin of the Higgs field and its mechanism for spontaneous symmetry breaking. Within the framework of lattice field theory, we consider the simplest model of an $SU(2)$ gauge theory. We construct this theory on a five-dimensional orbifold which explicitly breaks the gauge symmetry to $U(1)$ at the fixed points of the orbifold. Using anisotropic gauge couplings, we find that this theory exhibits three distinct phases which we label as confined, Higgs and hybrid. Within the Higgs phase, close to the Higgs-hybrid pha…
We study the phase diagram and mass spectrum of an $SU(2)$ Gauge-Higgs Unification scenario on a five-dimensional orbifold.We observe spontaneous symmetry breaking within the Higgs phase of the theory and, in the vicinity of a newly discovered phase, we find that the ratio of Higgs to gauge boson masses takes a Standard Model-like value. Precisely in this region of the phase diagram, we observe dimensional reduction via localisation.
In gauge theories, observable quantities have to be gauge-invariant. In general, this requires composite operators, which usually have substantially different properties, e.g. masses, than the elementary particles. Theories with a Higgs field, in which the Brout-Englert-Higgs effect is active, provide an interesting exception to this rule. Due to an intricate mechanism, the Fröhlich-Morchio-Strocchi mechanism, the masses of the composite operators with the same $J^P$ quantum numbers, but modified internal quantum numbers, have the same masses. This mechanism is supported using lattice gauge th…
In gauge theories, the physical, experimentally observable spectrum consists only of gauge-invariant states. In the standard model the Fröhlich-Morchio-Strocchi mechanism shows that these states can be adequately mapped to the gauge-dependent elementary W, Z, Higgs, and fermions. In theories with a more general gauge group and Higgs sector, appearing in various extensions of the standard model, this has not to be the case. In this work we determine analytically the physical spectrum of $\mathrm{SU}(N>2)$ gauge theories with a Higgs field in the fundamental representation. We show that discrepa…
We propose a novel description for the Higgs mechanism by which a gauge boson acquires the mass. We do not assume spontaneous breakdown of gauge symmetry signaled by a non-vanishing vacuum expectation value of the scalar field. In fact, we give a manifestly gauge-invariant description of the Higgs mechanism in the operator level, which does not rely on spontaneous symmetry breaking. This enables us to discuss the confinement-Higgs complementarity from a new perspective. The "Abelian" dominance in quark confinement of the Yang-Mills theory is understood as a consequence of the gauge-invariant H…
We study the Z_N symmetry in SU(N)+Higgs theories with the Higgs field in the fundamental representation. The distributions of the Polyakov loop show that the Z_N symmetry is explicitly broken in the Higgs phase. On the other hand, inside the Higgs symmetric phase the Polyakov loop distributions and other physical observables exhibit the Z_N symmetry. This effective restoration of the Z_N symmetry changes the nature of the confinement-deconfinenement transition. We argue that the Z_N symmetry will lead to time independent topological defect solutions in the Higgs symmetric deconfined phase whi…
Static quark-antiquark states in QCD, at finite quark separation, have a spectrum of metastable states corresponding to string-like excitations of the gauge field. In this article I suggest that there may also exist an excitation spectrum of heavy fermions in some gauge Higgs theories deep in the Higgs phase. In this situation there are no color electric flux tubes connecting quarks with antiquarks. There may, nonetheless, exist stable excitations of the bosonic fields surrounding an isolated fermion, below the particle production threshold. I present numerical evidence indicating the existenc…
The physical, observable spectrum in gauge theories is made up from gauge-invariant states. The Fröhlich-Morchio-Strocchi mechanism allows in the standard model to map these states to the gauge-dependent elementary $W$, $Z$ and Higgs states. This is no longer necessarily the case in theories with a more general gauge group and Higgs sector. We classify and predict the physical spectrum for a wide range of such theories, with special emphasis on GUT-like cases, and show that discrepancies between the spectrum of elementary fields and physical particles frequently arise.
We present the construction of constraint HMC algorithms for gauge-Higgs models in order to measure the effective Higgs potential. In particular we focus on SU(2) Gauge-Higgs Unification models in five dimensions. Previous simulations have identified regions in the Higgs phase of these models which have properties of 4D adjoint or Abelian Higgs models. We want to test this relationship by comparing the effective potentials in five and four dimensions.
According to recent work of Greensite and Matsuyama, the Higgs phase of a gauge Higgs theory is distinguished from the confinement and massless phases by the spontaneous breaking of a global center subgroup of the gauge group, and by confinement type. This is contrary to the notion that there is no essential distinction between the Higgs and confinement phases when the Higgs field is in the fundamental representation of the gauge group. Although this new symmetry breaking order parameter has been investigated in $D=4$ dimensions, there is so far no check in a non-abelian gauge theory containin…
The Z2 gauge-Higgs model in three dimensions has two different types of phase transition, confinement-deconfinement and Higgs magnetization. Here they are explored through two order parameters, the Coulomb magnetization which is a local order parameter for confinement, and a replica-based gauge-invariant order parameter which tracks the Higgs transition in a way similar to Landau-gauge magnetization. Minimal Coulomb gauge is set exactly, using the polynomial-time minimum-weight matching algorithm of Edmonds. This is a tremendous speed improvement over relaxation/annealing methods and completel…
The requirement of manifest gauge invariance leads to a conflict between perturbative and non-perturbative predictions for the low-energy spectra of grand-unified theories. These conflicts already emerge in simplified prototype models of SU(3) gauge theories with Higgs fields in different representations. We expand earlier lattice investigations on this subject and provide further support for the predicted deviations. These can be understood in terms of the Froehlich-Morchio-Strocchi mechanism.
We present a theoretical study of quantum simulations of $(1+1)$-dimensional U(1) lattice gauge-Higgs models, which contain a compact U(1) gauge field and a Higgs matter field, by using ultra-cold bosonic gases on a one-dimensional optical lattice. Starting from the extended Bose-Hubbard model with on-site and nearest-neighbor interactions, we derive the U(1) lattice gauge-Higgs model as a low-energy effective theory. The derived gauge-Higgs model exhibits nontrivial phase transitions between confinement and Higgs phases, and we discuss the relation with the phase transition in the extended Bo…
In this paper, we study theoretically atomic quantum simulations of a U(1) gauge-Higgs model on a three-dimensional (3D) spatial lattice by using an extended Bose-Hubbard model with intersite repulsions on a 3D optical lattice. Here, the phase and density fluctuations of the boson variable on each site of the optical lattice describe the vector potential and the electric field on each link of the gauge-model lattice, respectively. The target gauge model is different from the standard Wilson-type U(1) gauge-Higgs model because it has plaquette and Higgs interactions with asymmetric couplings in…
