Flavour symmetry as a Spontaneously Broken Discrete Permutation Symmetry Embedded in Colour

Abstract

A new mechanism for breaking an internal symmetry spontaneously is discussed, which is intermediate between the Nambu-Goldstone and Wigner modes of symmetry breaking. Here the quark-antiquark sea takes the role of the vacuum of the Nambu-Goldstone case. Flavour symmetry becomes a discrete permutation symmetry of the valence quarks with respect to the sea quarks, which can be spontaneously broken without generation of massless Goldstone bosons.

Comments: 6 pages in revtex