Higgs Mechanism and Symmetry Breaking without Redundant Variables

TL;DR

This paper reexamines the Higgs mechanism within a gauge theory framework that eliminates redundant variables, offering new insights into symmetry breaking and the nature of massless bosons without relying on traditional gauge symmetry breaking.

Contribution

It presents a novel formulation of the Higgs mechanism that avoids redundant degrees of freedom, providing a different perspective on symmetry aspects and the origin of massless vector bosons.

Findings

Massless vector bosons signal spontaneous global symmetry breakdown.

Differences between QED and non-abelian models are clarified.

Implications for electroweak symmetry and photon interpretation are discussed.

Abstract

The Higgs mechanism is reconsidered in the canonical Weyl gauge formulation of quantized gauge theories, using an approach in which redundant degrees of freedom are eliminated. As a consequence, its symmetry aspects appear in a different light. All the established physics consequences of the Higgs mechanism are recovered without invoking gauge symmetry breaking. The occurence of massless vector bosons in non-abelian Higgs models is interpreted as signal of spontaneous breakdown of certain global symmetries. Characteristic differences between the relevant ``displacement symmetries'' of QED and the Georgi Glashow model are exhibited. Implications for the symmetry aspects of the electroweak sector of the standard model and the interpretation of the physical photon as Goldstone boson are pointed out.