Quantization of the electroweak Volkov-Proca theory

Abstract

We quantize the charged sector of the electroweak theory in an external electromagnetic plane-wave background after spontaneous symmetry breaking, which we refer to as the electroweak Volkov-Proca theory, and analyze its global $U(1)$ symmetry and continuous residual translation subgroup together with the associated conserved charges and momentum components that label the states. We further derive the completeness and orthonormality relations for the Volkov-Proca states in Ritus form, and construct the off-shell and on-shell propagators, including their representation in terms of the scalar Volkov propagator. Finally, we derive the Källén-Lehmann spectral representation and the LSZ reduction formula for the Volkov-Proca states.