Physical remnant of electroweak theta angles
arXiv:2510.26281 · doi:10.1007/JHEP03(2026)205
Abstract
In addition to the well-known quantum chromodynamical theta angle, we show that the Standard Model has another theta angle which is invariant under arbitrary chiral rotations of quarks and leptons. The new theta angle can be identified with the quantum electrodynamical theta angle, which should be viewed as an independent parameter of the Standard Model, and may be observable in spacetime with non-simply connected features, either beyond the visible universe or in an effective background from a laboratory setup.
10 pages; JHEP prepublication version; split to 5 sections; chiral rotations to remove fermion mass phases without shifting the invariant theta angles are discussed in section 4; identification of the QED theta angle and its possible physical effects are discussed in detail in section 5
References in corpus (14)
- The landscape of QCD axion models
- Two-component spinor techniques and Feynman rules for quantum field theory and supersymmetry
- The Strong CP Problem and Axions
- Theta-Induced Electric Dipole Moment of the Neutron via QCD Sum Rules
- Global Aspects of Electric-Magnetic Duality
- Theta Vacua, QCD Sum Rules, and the Neutron Electric Dipole Moment
- Topological Casimir effect in Maxwell Electrodynamics on a Compact Manifold
- Can Electro-Weak $\h$-Term be Observable ?
- The Electroweak Vacuum Angle
- Axion detection via Topological Casimir Effect
- Spin and abelian electromagnetic duality on four-manifolds
- (In)dependence of Theta in the Higgs Regime without Axions
- Lattice QCD and the Neutron Electric Dipole Moment
- A few thoughts on and the electric dipole moments