The full electroweak interaction: an autonomous account

TL;DR

This paper presents an autonomous approach to electroweak interactions that avoids gauge choices and spontaneous symmetry breaking, using string-localized fields and Hilbert space formalism to derive consistent couplings.

Contribution

It introduces a novel framework for electroweak theory that relies on string-localized fields and Hilbert space, providing an intrinsic derivation of interaction couplings without gauge fixing.

Findings

Derives the known electroweak couplings from string independence constraints.

Framework can be extended to other configurations of vector bosons.

Avoids gauge choices and spontaneous symmetry breaking mechanisms.

Abstract

The precise renormalizable interactions in the bosonic sector of electroweak theory are intrinsically determined in the autonomous approach to perturbation theory. This proceeds directly on the Hilbert-Fock space built on the Wigner unirreps of the physical particles, with their given masses: those of three massive vector bosons, a photon, and a massive scalar (the "higgs"). Neither "gauge choices" nor an unobservable "mechanism of spontaneous symmetry breaking" is invoked. Instead, to proceed on Hilbert space requires using string-localized fields to describe the vector bosons. In such a framework, the condition of string independence of the S-matrix yields consistency constraints on the coupling coefficients, the essentially unique outcome being the experimentally known one. The analysis can be largely carried out for other configurations of massive and massless vector bosons, paving the way towards consideration of consistent mass patterns beyond those of the electroweak theory.