Confining the Electroweak Model to a Brane

TL;DR

This paper presents a five-dimensional SU(3) gauge theory framework that localizes fermions and gauge fields on branes, reproducing the electroweak model and predicting new particles, while addressing the hierarchy problem.

Contribution

It introduces a novel 5-D model with localized fermions and gauge fields that naturally reproduces the electroweak structure and predicts new particles.

Findings

Localization of chiral fermions on branes

Unification of gauge and Higgs fields at 5-D level

Prediction of a new neutrino and a massive vector field

Abstract

We introduce a simple scenario where, by starting with a five-dimensional SU(3) gauge theory, we end up with several 4-D parallel branes with localized fermions and gauge fields. Similar to the split fermion scenario, the confinement of fermions is generated by the nontrivial topological solution of a SU(3) scalar field. The 4-D fermions are found to be chiral, and to have interesting properties coming from their 5-D group representation structure. The gauge fields, on the other hand, are localized by loop corrections taking place at the branes produced by the fermions. We show that these two confining mechanisms can be put together to reproduce the basic structure of the electroweak model for both leptons and quarks. A few important results are: Gauge and Higgs fields are unified at the 5-D level; and new fields are predicted: One left-handed neutrino with zero-hypercharge, and one massive vector field coupling together the new neutrino with other left-handed leptons. The hierarchy problem is also addressed.