Non-perturbative quantization of the electroweak model's electrodynamic sector

TL;DR

This paper investigates the non-perturbative quantization of the electroweak model's electromagnetic sector by analyzing the large amplitude behavior of fermion determinants, highlighting the importance of Maxwell zero modes for consistent quantization.

Contribution

It demonstrates that Maxwell zero modes are essential for the non-perturbative quantization of QED and the electroweak model by examining fermion determinant growth in large amplitude regimes.

Findings

Fermion determinants grow faster than exponential of the field strength in large amplitudes.

Zero mode supporting potentials can lead to decaying fermion determinants.

Maxwell zero modes are necessary for non-perturbative quantization of QED and electroweak theory.

Abstract

Consider the Euclidean functional integral representation of any physical process in the electroweak model. Integrating out the fermion degrees of freedom introduces twenty-four fermion determinants. These multiply the Gaussian functional measures of the Maxwell, $Z$, $W$ and Higgs fields to give an effective functional measure. Suppose the functional integral over the Maxwell field is attempted first. This paper is concerned with the large amplitude behavior of the Maxwell effective measure. It is assumed that the large amplitude variation of this measure is insensitive to the presence of the $Z$, $W$ and $H$ fields; they are assumed to be a subdominant perturbation of the large amplitude Maxwell sector. Accordingly, we need only examine the large amplitude variation of a single QED fermion determinant. To facilitate this the Schwinger proper time representation of this determinant is decomposed into a sum of three terms. The advantage of this is that the separate terms can be non-perturbatively estimated for a measurable class of large amplitude random fields in four dimensions. It is found that the QED fermion determinant grows faster than $\exp \left[ce^2\int\mathrm d^4x\, F_{\mu\nu}^2\right]$, $c>0$, in the absence of zero mode supporting random background potentials. This raises doubt on whether the QED fermion determinant is integrable with any Gaussian measure whose support does not include zero mode supporting potentials. Including zero mode supporting background potentials can result in a decaying exponential growth of the fermion determinant. This is \textit{prima facie} evidence that Maxwellian zero modes are necessary for the non-perturbative quantization of QED and, by implication, for the non-perturbative quantization of the electroweak model.