Symmetry breaking, conformal geometry and gauge invariance

Abstract

When the electroweak action is rewritten in terms of SU(2) gauge invariant variables, the Higgs can be interpreted as a conformal metric factor. We show that asymptotic flatness of the metric is required to avoid a Gribov problem: without it, the new variables fail to be nonperturbatively gauge invariant. We also clarify the relations between this approach and unitary gauge fixing, and the existence of similar transformations in other gauge theories.

Comments: 11 pages. Version 2: typos corrected, discussion of Elitzur's theorem added. Version to appear in J.Phys.A