The Higgs mechanism and geometrical flows for two-manifolds

TL;DR

This paper explores the Higgs mechanism through geometrical flows in two-dimensional gravity with torsion, revealing a discrete mass spectrum, a mass gap, and quantum tunneling between vacua.

Contribution

It introduces a novel dynamical approach to the Higgs mechanism using Perelman's geometric flows in a two-dimensional gravity model with torsion.

Findings

Discrete mass spectrum identified

Existence of a mass gap between symmetry phases

Quantum tunneling probabilities calculated

Abstract

Using Perelman's approach for geometrical flows in terms of an entropy functional, the Higgs mechanism is studied dynamically along flows defined in the space of parameters and in fields space. The model corresponds to two-dimensional gravity that incorporates torsion as the gradient of a Higgs field, and with the reflection symmetry to be spontaneously broken. The results show a discrete mass spectrum, and the existence of a mass gap between the Unbroken Exact Symmetry and the Spontaneously Broken Symmetry scenarios. In the later scenario, the geometries at the degenerate vacua correspond to conformally flat manifolds without torsion; twisted two-dimensional geometries are obtained by building perturbation theory around a ground state; the tunneling quantum probability between vacua is determined along the flows.