What should be the ontology for the Standard Model?

Abstract

Although the Standard Model of particle physics is usually formulated in terms of fields, it can be equivalently formulated in terms of particles and strings. In this picture particles and open strings are always coupled. This offers an intuitive and graphical explanation for the otherwise mysterious gauge symmetry. In addition, the particle-string formulation avoids introducing redundant path integral configurations that are present in the field formulation. For its explanatory power and economy, the particle-string ontology may be preferred over the field ontology for the Standard Model.

19 pages, 7 figures, published version

References in corpus (5)

• Approaches to the sign problem in lattice field theory
• Surface worm algorithm for abelian Gauge-Higgs systems on the lattice
• Quantum mechanical path integrals in the first quantised approach to quantum field theory
• Dual representation of lattice QCD with worldlines and worldsheets of abelian color fluxes
• Worldlines and worldsheets for non-abelian lattice field theories: Abelian color fluxes and Abelian color cycles