Gauge Symmetry Breaking: Higgs-less Mass Generation and Radiation Phenomena

TL;DR

This paper explores how gauge symmetries can be broken without the Higgs mechanism, leading to mass generation and radiation phenomena, especially in the context of black hole horizons and quantum anomalies.

Contribution

It introduces a cohomological, Higgs-less method for mass generation in gauge theories and relates it to black hole surface deformations and anomalies.

Findings

Mass can be generated without Higgs mechanism via non-trivial gauge representations.

Surface deformations of black holes involve Virasoro algebra, affecting horizon physics.

Quantum anomalies alter gauge symmetry constraints, making gauge modes physical.

Abstract

Gauge symmetries generally appear as a constraint algebra, under which one expects all physical states to be singlets. However, quantum anomalies and boundary conditions introduce central charges and change this picture, thus causing gauge/diffeomorphism modes to become physical. We expose a cohomological (Higgs-less) generation of mass in U(N)-gauge invariant Yang-Mills theories through non-trivial representations of the gauge group. This situation is also present in black hole evaporation, where the Virasoro algebra turns out to be the relevant subalgebra of surface deformations of the horizon of an arbitrary black hole.