Possibility of a dynamical Higgs mechanism and of the respective phase transition induced by a boundary

TL;DR

This paper explores how boundary conditions in quantum field theory can induce a dynamical Higgs mechanism, leading to phase transitions and mass generation in scalar QED.

Contribution

It demonstrates that Dirichlet boundary conditions can cause spontaneous symmetry breaking and phase transitions, including a transition to a Higgs-like state.

Findings

Dirichlet BC induce spontaneous symmetry breaking.

Neumann BC lead to scalar mass generation.

Scalar QED transitions to Higgs model at critical boundary parameter.

Abstract

The dynamical quantum effects arising due to the boundary presence with two types of boundary conditions (BC) satisfied by scalar fields are studied. It is shown that while the Neumann BC lead to the usual scalar field mass generation, the Dirichlet BC give rise to the dynamical mechanism of spontaneous symmetry breaking. Due to the later, there arises the possibility of the respective phase transition from the normal phase to the spontaneously broken one. In particular, at the critical value of the combined evolution parameter the usual massless scalar QED transforms to the Higgs model.