Higgs mechanism - summary

Golstone Theorem: spontaneous breaking of a continuous symmetry

leads to a massless boson Nambu-Goldstone boson (NGB)

(a) global symmetry: physical massless particle

(ex.: lepton number Majoron)
(b) local symmetry (gauge symmetry): would-be Goldstone boson
becomes longitudinal component of gauge boson, which corresponds to
the generator of the broken symmetry the massless particle can be
eliminated from the theory, gauge boson becomes massive

pseudo-NGB: breaking of approximate (global) symmetry

Goldstone boson becomes mass of order of the breaking of the
symmetry

tilted mexican hat potential

Pions: pNGSB of the chiral symmetry of QCD
Axion: pNGSB of Peccei-Quin U(1) symmetry
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