Gravitation and spontaneous symmetry breaking

It is pointed out that the Higgs field may be supplanted by an ordinary Klein-Gordon field conformally coupled to the space-time curvature, and with very small, real, rest mass. Provided there is a bare cosmological constant of order of its square mass, this field can induce spontaneous symmetry breaking with a mass scale that can be as large as the Planck-Wheeler mass, but may be smaller. It can thus play a natural role in grand unified theories. In the theory presented here the physical cosmological constant is small, being of order of the squared mass, and can meet observational constraints without having to be cancelled accurately. The physical gravitational constant differs somewhat from the coupling constant in Einstein's equation, and is temperature dependent in the broken symmetry regime. Symmetry restoration occurs at high temperature.Research supported by the Arnow Chair in Astrophysics.     

Decoherence induced spontaneous symmetry breaking

We study time dependence of exchange symmetry properties of Bell states when two-qubits interact with local baths having identical parameters. In case of classical noise, we consider a decoherence Hamiltonian which is invariant under swapping the first and second qubits. We find that as the system evolves in time, two of the three symmetric Bell states preserve their qubit exchange symmetry with unit probability, whereas the symmetry of the remaining state survives with a maximum probability of 0.5 at the asymptotic limit. Next, we examine the exchange symmetry properties of the same states under local, quantum mechanical noise which is modeled by two identical spin baths. Results turn out to be very similar to the classical case. We identify decoherence as the main mechanism leading to breaking of qubit exchange symmetry.     

Group theory of spontaneous symmetry breaking

The connection between the minimality of the Higgs field potential and the maximal little groups of its representation obtained by spontaneous symmetry breaking is analyzed. It is shown that for several representations the lowest minimum of the potential is related to the maximal little group of those representations. Furthermore, a practical necessity criterion is given for the representation of the Higgs field needed for spontaneous symmetry breaking.     

The geometry of spontaneous symmetry breaking

The problem of classifying the theoretically allowed patterns of spontaneous symmetry breading, in theories where the ground state is determined as a minimum of a G-invariant potential (G a compact group of transformations), is analyzed. A detailed, complete, and rigorous justification of a recently proposed approach to the determination of the minima of G-invariant potentials [10.] is presented. The results are obtained through an analysis of the geometry of the finite-dimensional representations of G, which leads to a complete characterization of the structure of orbit space and its partition in subsets (strata) formed by orbits with the same symmetry under G-transformations (orbit type), and to a new theorem stating that the gradients of complex analytic G-invariant functions annihilate on one-dimensional strata. Polynomial potentials in particular are studied. Conditions for instability of the residual symmetry (second-order phase transitions) are determined.     

Dual models and spontaneous symmetry breaking

The question of spontaneous symmetry breaking in dual models is investigated. In the context of a particular model with a conserved “charge”, two different approaches to the problem, spurion emission and the effective potential methods, are developed. A method is described for the calculation of the effective potential, and it is applied to determine the first few terms of the potential.     

CP nonconservation and spontaneous symmetry breaking

The observed CP violation is assumed to be due to the spontaneous symmetry-breaking mechanism; the Lagrangian is CP invariant but its particular solution is not. The general classification of such theories when coupled with different unified gauge models of the weak and electromagnetic interactions is given. All such theories lead naturally to a basically milliweak CP noninvariant solution. The possibility that for most weak transitions the result may resemble a superweak theory is analysed, and possible experiments to distinguish these two different types of theories are discussed. Detailed calculations for various CP violating amplitudes are carried out for a generalized Georgi-Glashow model.     

Conformal invariance and spontaneous symmetry breaking

We study the spontaneous symmetry breaking in a conformally invariant gravitational theory. We particularly emphasize on the nonminimal coupling of matter fields to gravity. By the nonminimal coupling we consider a local distinction between the conformal frames of metric of matter fieldsand the metric explicitly entering the vacuum sector. We suppose that these two frames are conformally related by a dilaton field. We show that the imposition of a condition on the variable mass term of a scalar field may lead to the spontaneous symmetry breaking. In this way the scalar field may imitate the Higgs field behavior. Attributing a constant configuration to the ground state of the Higgs field, a Higgs conformal frame is specified. We define the Higgs conformal frame as a cosmological frame which describes the large scale characteristics of the observed universe. In the cosmological frame the gravitational coupling acquires a correct value and one no longer deals with the vacuum energy problem. We then study a more general case by considering a variable configuration for the ground state of Higgs field. In this case we introduce a cosmological solution of themodel.     

Scale invariance and spontaneous symmetry breaking

Spontaneous breaking of gauge symmetries is studied in theories with nonlinearly realized scale invariance. The classically sliding vacuum expectation values are fixed through quantum corrections. The anomaly of the dilatation current determines the vacuum energy density as well as the dilaton mass. The coupling of gravity to matter is modified in such a way that the cosmological constant vanishes.     

PT symmetry and spontaneous symmetry breaking in a microwave billiard

We demonstrate the presence of parity-time (PT) symmetry for the non-Hermitian two-state Hamiltonian of a dissipative microwave billiard in the vicinity of an exceptional point (EP). The shape of the billiard depends on two parameters. The Hamiltonian is determined from the measured resonance spectrum on a fine grid in the parameter plane. After applying a purely imaginary diagonal shift to the Hamiltonian, its eigenvalues are either real or complex conjugate on a curve, which passes through the EP. An appropriate basis choice reveals its PT symmetry. Spontaneous symmetry breaking occurs at the EP.     

Spin currents in non-inertial frames

The covariant Dirac equation and its solutions show that rotation and acceleration can be used to generate and control spin currents.     

Confinement from spontaneous breaking of scale symmetry

We show that one can obtain naturally the confinement of static charges from the spontaneous symmetry breaking of scale invariance in a gauge theory. At the classical level a confining force is obtained and at the quantum level, using a gauge invariant but path-dependent variables formalism, the Cornell confining potential is explicitly obtained. Our procedure answers completely to the requirements by 't Hooft for “perturbative confinement”.     

Vacuum instabilities in models with spontaneous symmetry breaking

Adopting as a reference a simple model with spontaneously broken symmetry we show that the extra massless field present in the three approximation in addition to the true Goldstone bosons may induce, through the radiative corrections to its vacuum expectation value, infrared effects which are not compensable without spoiling the symmetry itself. We further extend the analysis to generic lagrangian field models with spontaneous symmetry breaking and prove that the only constraint to their renormalizability arises from the radiative corrections to the vacuum expectation value of the massless fields, except for the true Goldstone bosons which never induce such pathologies.     

Solitons in models with dynamical spontaneous symmetry breaking

An approximate quasi-classical method for the investigation of solitons appearing at quantum level is described. The existence of the soliton in the model with Yukawa coupling in two-dimensional space-time is established with the help of this method. The existence of solitons in the Georgi-Glashow type model with dynamical spontaneous symmetry breaking is shown.     

Possible spontaneous breaking of lorentz and CPT symmetry

One possible ramification of unified theories of nature such as string theory that may underlie the conventional standard model is the possible spontaneous breakdown of Lorentz and CPT symmetry. In this talk, the formalism for inclusion of such effects into a low-energy effective field theory is presented. An extension of the standard model that includes Lorentz-and CPT-breaking terms is developed. The restriction of the standard model extension to the QED sector is then discussed.     

On the spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry in QCD

We calculate the vacuum polarization functions of the vector and axial current for massless quarks in second-order perturbation theory. We find that, contrary to previous speculations, there is no indication, at this level, of spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry in QCD.     

Electromagnetic field and spontaneous symmetry breaking in biological matter

Dynamical effects of electromagnetic interaction among electric dipoles in biological systems are studied. On the basis of a previous analysis in terms of spontaneous breakdown of symmetry we show that the Anderson-Higgs-Kibble mechanism occurs, which manifests itself in a self-focusing mechanism of propagation for the electromagnetic field inside the biological systems. Phenomenological consequences, such as the formation of filamentary structures of the type occurring in cell cytoskeleton, are analyzed. The appearance of nonzero temperature due to the finite size and polarization of the system, and the relation with dissipativity are also discussed.     

Gauge invariance and spontaneous symmetry breaking in two-gap superconductors

The gauge symmetry of the Ginzburg–Landau theory for two-gap superconductors is analyzed in this letter. We argue that the existence of two different phases, associated with the two independent scalar Higgs fields, explicitly breaks the gauge symmetry of the Ginzburg–Landau Hamiltonian, unless a new additional vector field is included. Furthermore, the interference term, or Josephson coupling, holding a direct dependence with the phase difference, also explicitly breaks down the gauge symmetry. We show that a solution for the problem is achieved by adding an additional kinetic coupling term between the two vector fields, which generates the desired terms through a spontaneous symmetry breaking mechanism. Finally, the electrodynamics of the system is also presented in terms of the supercurrents inside the superconducting region.     

Noncritically squeezed light via spontaneous rotational symmetry breaking

We predict squeezed light generation through the spontaneous rotational symmetry breaking occurring in a degenerate optical parametric oscillator (DOPO) pumped above threshold. We show, within the linearized theory, that a DOPO with spherical mirrors, in which the signal and idler fields correspond to first-order Laguerre-Gauss modes, produces a perfectly squeezed vacuum with the shape of a Hermite-Gauss mode. This occurs at any pumping level above threshold; hence, the phenomenon is noncritical. Imperfections of the rotational symmetry, due, e.g., to cavity anisotropy, are shown to have a small impact.