Abstract: | An analysis is made of the connection between the “massless” field theories, in the presence of the Coleman-Weinberg phenomenon and the corresponding models with a “negative mass” term as origin of the spontaneous breakdown. For the very interesting case of an Abelian gauge theory, i.e. the Higgs model, we find the conditions for the parameters of the theory which make it equivalent to the spontaneously broken scalar massless electrodynamics. The properties of the effective potential in this limit are studied. |