2011/02/28 by Ward Struyve · 4 citations
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · Social Sciences · #Algebraic and Geometric Analysis #International Science and Diplomacy #Quantum and Classical Electrodynamics #hep-th #physics.hist-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/j.shpsb.2011.06.003
published as Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 42, 226-236 (2011) · 24 pages, no figures, LaTex
arxiv created 2011/08/04 · openalex publication_date 2011/10/18 · arxiv updated 2012/04/05 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The Higgs mechanism gives mass to Yang-Mills gauge bosons. According to the conventional wisdom, this happens through the spontaneous breaking of gauge symmetry. Yet, gauge symmetries merely reflect a redundancy in the state description and therefore the spontaneous breaking can not be an essential ingredient. Indeed, as already shown by Higgs and Kibble, the mechanism can be explained in terms of gauge invariant variables, without invoking spontaneous symmetry breaking. In this paper, we present a general discussion of such gauge invariant treatments for the case of the Abelian Higgs model, in the context of classical field theory. We thereby distinguish between two different notions of gauge: one that takes all local transformations to be gauge and one that relates gauge to a failure of determinism.