We consider the static potential in theories exhibiting spontaneous symmetry breaking. We use our findings to calculate the static potential of the Standard Model at one-loop order. We do so in both the Wilson loop and scattering amplitude approaches and discuss the limitations of the Wilson loop approach. As the field content of the SM is extensive, analogous results to ours in a large set of models is now achievable by varying the appropriate couplings and group theory factors.
We explore the possibility that scale symmetry is a quantum symmetry that is broken only spontaneously and apply this idea to the Standard Model (SM). We compute the quantum corrections to the potential of the higgs field ($phi$) in the classically scale invariant version of the SM ($m_phi=0$ at tree level) extended by the dilaton ($sigma$). The tree-level potential of $phi$ and $sigma$, dictated by scale invariance, may contain non-polynomial effective operators, e.g. $phi^6/sigma^2$, $phi^8/sigma^4$, $phi^{10}/sigma^6$, etc. The one-loop scalar potential is scale invariant, since the loop calculations manifestly preserve the scale symmetry, with the DR subtraction scale $mu$ generated spontaneously by the dilaton vev $musimlanglesigmarangle$. The Callan-Symanzik equation of the potential is verified in the presence of the gauge, Yukawa and the non-polynomial operators. The couplings of the non-polynomial operators have non-zero beta functions that we can actually compute from the quantum potential. At the quantum level the higgs mass is protected by spontaneously broken scale symmetry, even though the theory is non-renormalizable. We compare the one-loop potential to its counterpart computed in the traditional DR scheme that breaks scale symmetry explicitly ($mu=$constant) in the presence at the tree level of the non-polynomial operators.
We study the concomitant breaking of spatial translations and dilatations in Ginzburg-Landau-like models, where the dynamics responsible for the symmetry breaking is described by an effective Mexican hat potential for spatial gradients. We show that there are fractonic modes with either subdimensional propagation or no propagation altogether, namely, immobility. Such class of effective field theories encompasses instances of helical superfluids and meta-fluids, where fractons can be connected to an emergent symmetry under higher moment charges, leading in turns to the trivialization of some elastic coefficients. The introduction of a finite charge density alters the mobility properties of fractons and leads to a competition between the chemical potential and the superfluid velocity in determining the gap of the dilaton. The mobility of fractons can also be altered at zero density upon considering additional higher-derivative terms.
We perform a comprehensive study of on-shell recursion relations for Born amplitudes in spontaneously broken gauge theories and identify the minimal shifts required to construct amplitudes with a given particle content and spin quantum numbers. We show that two-line or three-line shifts are sufficient to construct all amplitudes with five or more particles, apart from amplitudes involving longitudinal vector bosons or scalars, which may require at most five-line shifts. As an application, we revisit selection rules for multi-boson amplitudes using on-shell recursion and little-group transformations.
We discuss renormalization in a toy model with one fermion field and one real scalar field phi, featuring a spontaneously broken discrete symmetry which forbids a fermion mass term and a phi^3 term in the Lagrangian. We employ a renormalization scheme which uses the MSbar scheme for the Yukawa and quartic scalar couplings and renormalizes the vacuum expectation value of phi by requiring that the one-point function of the shifted field is zero. In this scheme, the tadpole contributions to the fermion and scalar selfenergies are canceled by choice of the renormalization parameter delta_v of the vacuum expectation value. However, delta_v and, therefore, the tadpole contributions reenter the scheme via the mass renormalization of the scalar, in which place they are indispensable for obtaining finiteness. We emphasize that the above renormalization scheme provides a clear formulation of the hierarchy problem and allows a straightforward generalization to an arbitrary number of fermion and scalar fields.
We study the solution to the Slavnov-Taylor (ST) identities in spontaneously broken effective gauge theories for a non-Abelian gauge group. The procedure to extract the $beta$-functions of the theory in the presence of (generalized) non-polynomial field redefinitions is elucidated.