Spectrum and scaling in a strongly coupled fermion-gauge-scalar model

TL;DR

This paper investigates a strongly coupled fermion-gauge-scalar lattice model, revealing how fermion and scalar masses scale near phase transitions, which could inform alternative mechanisms to the Higgs in particle physics.

Contribution

It provides new spectral data on a U(1) gauge model with dynamical fermions, highlighting the conditions under which scalar and fermion masses become small near phase transitions.

Findings

Fermion mass scales near the chiral phase transition line.

Scalar boson mass becomes small near the Higgs phase endpoint.

Fermion-antifermion bound state masses are analyzed.

Abstract

The strongly coupled lattice gauge models show an interesting mechanism of dynamical mass generation. If a suitable continuum limit can be found, one may think of it as an alternative to the Higgs mechanism. We present data on the spectrum, obtained in the model with U(1) gauge symmetry with dynamical fermions. They indicate that the fermion mass scales in the vicinity of the whole chiral phase transition line. In contrast to this, the composite scalar boson mass seems to get small only in the region near the endpoint E of the Higgs phase transition. Thus this point is the most interesting candidate for approaching the continuum limit. The masses of fermion--antifermion bound states are also discussed.