Higgs mechanism in a light front formulation

Lubomir Martinovic (1) , Pierre Grange (2)

1 INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS - SLOVAK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES Institute of Physics Dubraska cesta 9, 84228 Bratislava, Slovaquie
2 LPTA - Laboratoire de Physique Théorique et Astroparticules

We give a simple derivation of the Higgs mechanism in an abelian light front field theory. It is based on a finite volume quantization with antiperiodic scalar fields and a periodic gauge field. An infinite set of degenerate vacua in the form of coherent states of the scalar field that minimize the light front energy, is constructed. The corresponding effective Hamiltonian descibes a massive vector field whose third component is generated by the would-be Goldstone boson. This mechanism, understood here quantum mechanically in the form analogous to the space-like quantization, is derived without gauge fixing as well as in the unitary and the light cone gauge.

Mots clés: Field Theory; Light front quantization

Domaines: Physique des Hautes Energies - Théorie [hep-th]

Lubomir Martinovic, Pierre Grange. Higgs mechanism in a light front formulation. 2006. ⟨hal-00117160⟩