Weyl geometric gravity and "breaking" of electroweak symmetry

TL;DR

This paper explores a Weyl geometric gravity framework that links gravity and electroweak symmetry breaking, proposing a low-energy scalar boson and a novel perspective on mass generation through gravitational coupling.

Contribution

It extends Weyl geometric gravity to the electroweak sector, suggesting symmetry breaking and mass acquisition can occur via gravitational interactions rather than solely through the Higgs mechanism.

Findings

Electroweak symmetry breaking may be driven by Weyl gravity coupling.

A scalar boson at around 1 eV energy level is proposed.

Mass arises from gravitational coupling, not just the Higgs field.

Abstract

A Weyl geometric scale covariant approach to gravity due to Omote, Dirac, and Utiyama (1971ff) is reconsidered. It can be extended to the electroweak sector of elementary particle fields, taking into account their basic scaling freedom. Already Cheng (1988) indicated that electroweak symmetry breaking, usually attributed to the Higgs field with a boson expected at $0.1 - 0.3 \,TeV$, may be due to a coupling between Weyl geometric gravity and electroweak interactions. Weyl geometry seems to be well suited for treating questions of elementary particle physics, which relate to scale invariance and its "breaking". This setting suggests the existence of a scalar field boson at the surprisingly low energy of $\sim 1\, eV$. That may appear unlikely; but, as a payoff, the acquirement of mass arises as a result of coupling to gravity in agreement with the understanding of mass as the gravitational charge of fields.