Standard Model in Weyl conformal geometry

TL;DR

This paper explores embedding the Standard Model within Weyl conformal geometry, leading to a natural gauged scale symmetry, spontaneous symmetry breaking, and potential implications for inflation and particle physics.

Contribution

It introduces a minimal extension of the Standard Model in Weyl geometry with no new fields, revealing a geometric mechanism for symmetry breaking and connections to cosmological inflation.

Findings

Weyl gauge field acquires mass via geometric Stueckelberg mechanism.

Electroweak scale can originate from geometric symmetry breaking.

Inflationary predictions resemble Starobinsky model with Higgs coupling.

Abstract

We study the Standard Model (SM) in Weyl conformal geometry. This embedding is natural and truly minimal {\it with no new fields} required beyond the SM spectrum and Weyl geometry. The action inherits a gauged scale symmetry $D(1)$ (known as Weyl gauge symmetry) from the underlying geometry. The associated Weyl quadratic gravity undergoes spontaneous breaking of $D(1)$ by a geometric Stueckelberg mechanism in which the Weyl gauge field ($\omega_\mu$) acquires mass by "absorbing" the spin-zero mode ($\phi_0$) of the $\tilde R^2$ term in the action. This mode also generates the Planck scale and the cosmological constant. The Einstein-Proca action of $\omega_\mu$ emerges in the broken phase. In the presence of the SM, this mechanism receives corrections (from the Higgs) and it can induce electroweak (EW) symmetry breaking. The EW scale is proportional to the vev of the Stueckelberg field ($\phi_0$). The Higgs field ($\sigma$) has direct couplings to the Weyl gauge field, and its mass may be protected at quantum level by the D(1) symmetry. The SM fermions can acquire couplings to $\omega_\mu$ only in the special case of a non-vanishing kinetic mixing of the gauge fields of $D(1)\times U(1)_Y$. If this mixing is indeed present, part of $Z$ boson mass is not due to the Higgs mechanism, but to its mixing with massive $\omega_\mu$. Precision measurements of $Z$ mass then set lower bounds on the mass of $\omega_\mu$ which can be light (few TeV). In the early Universe the Higgs field can have a {\it geometric} origin, by Weyl vector fusion, and the Stueckelberg-Higgs potential can drive inflation. The dependence of the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$ on the spectral index $n_s$ is similar to that in Starobinsky inflation but shifted to lower $r$ by the Higgs non-minimal coupling to Weyl geometry.