Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism for accelerating observers

Abstract

In this work we consider the spontaneous symmetry breaking of the electroweak $SU(2{)}_L\times U(1{)}_Y$ gauge group into $U(1{)}_{em}$ taken place in the Standard Model of particle physics as seen from the point of view of an accelerating observer. According to the Unruh effect that observer detects the Minkowski vacuum as a thermal bath at a temperature proportional to the proper acceleration $a$. Then we show that (in a certain large $N$ limit) when the acceleration is bigger than the critical value $a_c=4\pi v$ (where $v$ is the Higgs vacuum expectation value), the electroweak $SU(2{)}_L\times U(1{)}_Y$ gauge symmetry is restored and all elementary particles become massless. In addition, even observers with $a<a_c$, can see this symmetry restoration in the region close to the Rindler horizon.

References in corpus (4)

• The Unruh effect and its applications
• Percolation of color sources and critical temperature
• Restoration of Dynamically Broken Chiral and Color Symmetries for an Accelerated Observer
• Spontaneous symmetry breaking and the Unruh effect

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Triggering the QCD phase transition through the Unruh effect: chiral symmetry restoration for uniformly accelerated observers