Higgs phase in non-Abelian gauge theories
In this work, we consider a non-Abelian gauge theory involvng scalar fields with non-tachyonic mass terms in the Lagrangian and we wish to construct a finite energy density trial vacuum for this theory. In the first Chapter, we give a general discussion of the phases of a gauge theory and its gauge fixing degeneracies. In the second Chapter, starting from an Axial gauge canonical formulation, we construct the Unitary gauge bare vacuum expressed in terms of Axial gauge variables, within the context of Abelian Scalar Q.E.D. This state which has the form of a coherent plasma of charge, is shown to have infrared finite energy density and invariat under the residual group of the Axial gauge. Due to ultraviolet reasons, we then consider a slight modification of this state. In the third Chapter, these considerations are generalized to an SU(2) gauge theory with fundamental representation scalars. Within the same Axial gauge formulation, we thus have two trial states for the vacuum; the Axial gauge bare vacuum for the perturbative phase and a coherent plasma of color for the Higgs phase. Since the latter has a finite energy density, this indicates that the vacuum of this non-Abelian gauge theory is more likely to be in the Higgs phase, rather than the perturbative phase with real massless gluons.
- Research Organization:
- California Univ., Berkeley (USA)
- OSTI ID:
- 6446714
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: Thesis (Ph. D.)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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