Longitudinal/Goldstone Boson Equivalence and Phenomenology of Probing the Electroweak Symmetry Breaking ∗

We formulate the Equivalence between the longitudinal weak-boson and the Goldstone boson as a criterion for sensitively probing the electroweak symmetry breaking mechanism and develop a precise power counting rule for chiral Lagrangian formulated electroweak theories. With these we semi-quantitatively analyze the sensitivities to various effective operators related to electroweak symmetry breaking via weak-boson scatterings at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Recent LEP/SLC experiments can test the electroweak (EW) theory to the accuracy of one-loop corrections, and support the spontaneously broken SU(2)× U(1) gauge theory as the correct theory of the EW interactions. However, light Higgs boson has not been found, and the current experiments are insensitive to the spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) sector of the theory, compatible with a wide range of the Higgs boson mass 60GeV≤ mH ≤ 1TeV. So the SSB mechanism in the EW theory is still a mystery, and it is thus important to probe all possible SSB mechanisms: either weakly or strongly interacting. We know that only the longitudinal component V a L of the weak-boson V a (W,Z) (arising from “eating” the would-be Goldstone boson (GB)) is sensitive to the SSB Talk presented by Yu-Ping Kuang at First International Conference on Frontiers of Physics, Aug.5-9, 1995, Shantou, China.