Worldline path-integral representations for standard model propagators and effective actions (Q1708816)

Summary: We develop the formalism to do worldline calculations relevant for the Standard Model. For that, we first figure out the worldline representations for the free propagators of massless chiral fermions of a single generation and gauge bosons of the Standard Model. Then we extend the formalism to the massive and dressed cases for the fermions and compute the QED vertex. We then go over fermionic one-loop effective actions and anomalies. To our knowledge, in the places where there has been an attempt at deriving the gauge boson propagator, the derivation is somewhat contrived, and we believe our derivation is more straightforward. Moreover, our incorporation of internal degrees of freedom is novel and sports some new features. The derivation of the QED vertex is also new. The treatment of the fermionic one-loop effective actions leads to a particularly economical derivation of chiral anomalies and the gauge anomaly freedom in the Standard Model, improving upon the state of the art in the literature.