TITLE:
Analysis and Reinterpretation of the Minimal Higgs Sector
AUTHORS:
Richard B. Holmes
KEYWORDS:
Higgs Fields, Faddeev-Popov Ghosts, Quantum Field Theory, Electroweak Theory
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Modern Physics,
Vol.16 No.6,
June
18,
2025
ABSTRACT: The time evolution of the Higgs, the Faddeev-Popov ghost fields, and the gauge phase functions of the standard model are analyzed using the ghost Lagrangian density from Chapter 11 of Taylor’s “Gauge Theories of Weak Interactions”. The results assume that the amplitudes of the vector bosons are negligible for homogeneous solutions. With a broken SU(2) × U(1) symmetry, 3 of the 4 Higgs fields have no physical significance independent of the 3 vector bosons W1, W2 and Z. However, with a literal interpretation of the ghost Lagrangian density, the Higgs ghost fields are found to have independent physical significance. It is found that the Higgs, ghosts, and gauge functions are both the occupants and the generators of gratings which can be interpreted as the “potential wells” of mass matrices of an anomaly-free quantum field theory. This implies that the charged and uncharged ghosts of the minimal Higgs sector can be interpreted as preons. One set of consequences of this standard-model-based analysis is that neutrinos are found to have mass and also mass oscillations.