Talk:Chiral symmetry breaking

Merger proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result of this discussion was to proceed with the merge proposed. Cuzkatzimhut (talk) 15:03, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

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Pseudo-Goldstone boson is properly a section of this stub, as few other well-understood laws of nature would qualify.Cuzkatzimhut (talk) 19:34, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

It has been 2 years with no objections. You might as well do it. RockMagnetist(talk) 16:48, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't know enough about the subject to state definitively that the two articles should be merged, but if you say they should be Cuzkatzimhut, I will go along with that. Richard3120 (talk) 05:18, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Should't we wait to see if the target itself is moved first, as now proposed? Cuzkatzimhut (talk) 10:48, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Huh?

I can almost follow the discussion of the U(2) x U(2) breaking into SU(2) x SU(2), but I have no idea where SU(3) came from in later descriptions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.247.162.18 (talk) 04:38, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

I tweaked the narrative to address your confusion, perhaps, even though there is no discussion of the explicit breaking of the axial U(1)_A (as you might be suggesting?). That breaking is due to the anomaly and the "seizing of the vacuum" mechanism of Kogut and Susskind--this is far, far too subtle for this concise stub on well-understood phenomena and was studiously avoided. (Of course, baryon number, U(1)_V, remains unbroken.)

For N flavors, the respective symmetry is $SU(N)_{L}\times SU(N)_{R}\times U(1)_{V}\times U(1)_{A}~,$ and here N = 3 is chosen. The counting is self explanatory, isn't it?, as the 8+8 generators of $SU(3)_{L}\times SU(3)_{R}$ have their 8 nondiagonal (axial) combinations spontaneoulsy broken, while the 8 remaining diagonal ones survive as the celebrated "Eightfold way" vector flavor symmetry. The words in the writeup are chosen to avoid confusion, so there should be no logical snag anymore, or is there? The main article is chiral symmetry. Cuzkatzimhut (talk) 15:22, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Hostile/disruptive templates removal

I removed the bevy of tendentious templates (of yesterday, by 47.32.217.164), providing self-explanatory tweaks and explanations where appropriate. In the majority of the cases, the explanation of the contentious point is either in the preceding sentence or the few following the template: the reader only needs to read on. It would be quite preferable to voice these unfriendly heckling here, on this page, designed for editorial communication; rather than plastering question marks all over the article, a public document, not a forum, in increasing frustration and impatience; or else to try to improve the wording, as the gratuitous rearrangement effort suggests intent for. But, ultimately, this is a quick summary of facts, not a QFT tutorial. It is highly inappropriate reading for readers unfamiliar with symmetries, Goldston'es theorem, and SSB. This is not the place to learn about them. Precise correct statements might reveal the points of interest the reader may chose to read up on, elsewhere. This is a QFT technical article--some minimal appreciation of the landscape is required. Cuzkatzimhut (talk) 13:09, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

If this is a QFT technical article, then you can just safely remove it from Wikipedia – it will be essentially of no use here. 134.160.214.17 (talk) 08:01, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Nomenclature

For me it is already hard to follow basic expressions as

$\langle {\bar {q}}_{R}^{a}q_{L}^{b}\rangle =v\delta ^{ab}~,$

since none of the nomenclature is explained in the text. What are the indices a and b? What does the bracket mean? It might be trivial for insiders, however wikipedia is public and should at least try to explain as much as possible, right? Or at least define everything which is used. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Anonymmaus (talk • contribs) 23:38, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Section on electroweak symmetry needed

@Cuzkatzimhut: Leonard Susskind and others have referred to the process by which left and right-handed fermions (with different SU(2) representations) acquire mass and mix while conserving charge via the Higgs mechanism as a type of chiral symmetry breaking. Either this needs a section, or it needs a section explaining Leonard Susskind's mistake. —wing gundam 17:39, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps you should propose something, which does not confuse readers: first do no damage. Personally, I find L.S.'s statement deeply unhelpful; it is a "gee whizz" aside confusing all but the unconfusable. You must understand that on the PSE site there is a constant stream of "Wikipedia victims" streaming in with misconceptions gleaned here, or worse, with "Is Wikipedia wrong on this?" frustrated screams.

The SM Higgs mechanism does introduce fermion mass terms, but does not break an extant linearly realized chiral symmetry: R and L fermions are not symmetric before the vev formation! They start life with different charges, symmetries and quantum numbers. Whether you wish to call this explicit breaking might be your prerogative, but it sure as darkness is not spontaneous breaking (a Nambu-Goldstone realization of some chiral symmetry). 99% of physicists understand under chiral symmetry and its breaking to be the strong interaction phenomenon detailed here; and throwing in irresponsible tangents can only serve to confuse.

If you proposed a paragraph or a footnote that does not raise eyebrows and passes soundness tests, here, on this Talkpage, one might try to vet it. But, be mindful of the extant statement, already present in the text, " ...the actual small quark masses also break the chiral symmetry explicitly as well (providing non-vanishing pieces to the divergence of chiral currents). " which is there, clearly, concisely, and avoidant of the logical traps you are all but proposing to set up. Cuzkatzimhut (talk) 18:34, 30 September 2019 (UTC)