Nonperturbative aspects of spontaneous symmetry breaking

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...

Philosophical Aspects of Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking

This essay expounds the algebraic framework describing general physical theories, within which the phenomenon of spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) makes its appearance in infinite quantum systems. This is in contrast with the fact that a large class of theories both classical and quantum, finite and infinite are termed, in the conventional account of classical and quantum mechanics, as exhibi...

Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking

THE FRANK KINETIC MODEL FOR SPONTANEOUS CHIRAL SYMMETRY BREAKING WITH VARIABLE CONCENTRATION OF THE ACHIRAL SUBSTRATE

This paper considers the possibility of spontaneous transition of aracemic mixture (composed of equal amounts of two enantiomeric species, say L and D) into a monochiral state (in which only one enantiomer, say L, is present). Transitions of this kind have been recently experimentally observed. A plausible approach to this phenomenon is a model put forward by Frank, based on simple laws of ...

General Aspects of Symmetry Breaking

On basis of an algebraic analysis of symmetry breaking in general and the Higgs mechanism in the standard model of elementary particles we generalize the concept of symmetry breaking to systems with non-compact groups but not necessarily caused by a potential. Thereto we give some simple, but unfamiliar examples of symmetry breaking with and without potentials. The analysis of the concept of ma...