1999/06/30 by Thomas Appelquist, T. Appelquist, P. S. Rodrigues da Silva +2 · 5 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Chiral symmetry breaking #Degenerate energy levels #Electroweak interaction #Gauge boson #Gauge theory #Global symmetry #Goldstone boson #Parity (physics) #Particle physics #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Phase transition #Physics #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions #Quantum mechanics #Spontaneous symmetry breaking #Symmetry breaking #Technicolor #Theoretical physics #hep-ph #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.60.116007
published as Phys.Rev.D60:116007,1999 · Added references. 20 pages, RevTex format. To Appear in Phys. Rev. D
arxiv created 1999/09/21 · openalex publication_date 1999/11/12 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We examine the possibility that the physical spectrum of a vectorlike gauge field theory exhibits an enhanced global symmetry near a chiral phase transition. A transition from the Goldstone phase to the symmetric phase is expected as the number of fermions Nf is increased to some critical value. Various investigations have suggested that a parity-doubled spectrum develops as the critical value is approached. Using an effective Lagrangian as a guide, we note that parity doubling is associated with the appearance of an enhanced global symmetry in the spectrum of the theory. The enhanced symmetry would develop as the spectrum splits into two sectors, with the first exhibiting the usual pattern of a spontaneously broken chiral symmetry, and the second exhibiting an additional, unbroken symmetry and parity doubling. The first sector includes the Goldstone bosons and other states such as massive scalar partners. The second includes a parity-degenerate vector and axial vector along with other possible parity partners. We note that if such a near-critical theory describes symmetry breaking in the electroweak theory, the additional symmetry suppresses the contribution of the parity-doubled sector to the S parameter.