1202.5993 (Brett Altschul)

Lorentz Violation and the Higgs Mechanism    [PDF]

Brett Altschul

We consider scalar quantum electrodynamics in the Higgs phase and in the presence of Lorentz violation. Several equivalent formulations of this theory exist, related by coordinate redefinitions. Spontaneous breaking of the gauge symmetry may give rise to Lorentz-violating gauge field mass terms. Such mass terms may cause the longitudinal mode of the gauge field to propagate superluminally. However, a number of properties of this theory are quite analogous to those seen in a conventional Abelian gauge theory with spontaneous symmetry breaking. The theory may be quantized by the Faddeev-Popov procedure, although the Lagrangian for the ghost fields also needs to be Lorentz violating. We compare these results to some other quantum field theories with Lorentz violation.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1202.5993