Second-Order Fermions and the Standard Model

TL;DR

This paper introduces a second-order fermionic Lagrangian for the Standard Model that is non-hermitian but maintains unitarity, offering a more compact theoretical formulation while preserving conventional perturbation results.

Contribution

It constructs a non-hermitian, second-order fermionic Lagrangian for the Standard Model that remains unitary and equivalent to the traditional first-order formalism.

Findings

The second-order formalism is unitary despite non-hermiticity.

Perturbation theory remains equivalent to the standard approach.

Provides a more compact description of the Standard Model.

Abstract

We present a construction of a non-hermitian fermionic Lagrangian which has a second-order kinetic term. Despite the non-hermicity of the latter, the theory is unitary and the perturbation theory that can be derived is equivalent to the usual one derived from a first-order formalism. Having this in mind, the construction of a second-order Standard Model allows a more compact description of the theory. This work is based on [1, 2] and citations therein.