Holographic QFTs on S2×S2, spontaneous symmetry breaking and Efimov saddle points

On gauge invariance and spontaneous symmetry breaking

We show how the widely used concept of spontaneous symmetry breaking can be explained in causal perturbation theory by introducing a perturbative version of quantum gauge invariance. Perturbative gauge invariance, formulated exclusively by means of asymptotic fields, is discussed for the simple example of Abelian U(1) gauge theory (Abelian Higgs model). Our findings are relevant for the electro...

Nonperturbative Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking

One of the most astonishing results of quantum field theory is spontaneous symmetry breaking. One can say that it is the situation when something arises from the quantization. This means that on the quantum level one has something that was not present on the classical level. Coleman and Weinberg [1] write : “ . . . higher-order effects may qualitatively change the character of a physical theory...

Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking

Symmetry Breaking at Enhanced Symmetry Points

The influence of world-sheet boundary condensates on the toroidal compactification of bosonic string theories is considered. At the special points in the moduli space at which the closed-string theory possesses an enhanced unbroken G × G symmetry (where G is a semi-simple product of simply laced groups) a scalar boundary condensate param-eterizes the coset G × G/G. Fluctuations around this back...

Spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking on the lattice

Using lattice QCD we study the spectrum of low-lying fermion eigenmodes. According to the Banks-Casher relation, accumulation of the low-mode is responsible for the spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry in the QCD vacuum. On the lattice we use the overlap fermion formulation that preserves exact chiral symmetry, which is essential for low-lying mode distributions. Through a detailed compariso...