Topology of electroweak vacua

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Publication:1632089




Abstract: In the Standard Model, the electroweak symmetry is broken by a complex, SU(2)-doublet Higgs field and the vacuum manifold SU(2)imesU(1)/U(1) has the topology of a 3-sphere. We remark that there exist theoretical alternatives that are locally isomorphic, but in which the vacuum manifold is homeomorphic to an arbitrary non-trivial principal U(1)-bundle over a 2-sphere. These alternatives have non-trivial fundamental group and thus feature topologically-stable electroweak strings. An alternative based on the manifold mathbbRP3 (with fundamental group mathbbZ/2) allows custodial protection of gauge boson masses and their couplings to fermions, but, in common with all alternatives to S3, has a problem with fermion masses.









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