Symmetric Mass Generation

The Fermi surface symmetric mass generation (SMG) is an intrinsically interaction-driven mechanism that opens an excitation gap on the Fermi surface without invoking symmetry-breaking or topological order. We explore this phenomenon within a bilayer square lattice model of spin-1/2 fermions, where the system can be tuned from a metallic Fermi liquid phase to a strongly-interacting SMG insulator phase by an inter-layer spin-spin interaction. The SMG insulator preserves all sym...

An analogous "Strong CP problem" is identified in a toy model in 2-dimensional spacetime: a general 1+1d abelian U(1) anomaly-free chiral fermion and chiral gauge theory with a generic theta instanton term $\frac{\theta}{2 \pi} \int F$. The theta term alone violates the charge-conjugation-time-reversal CT and the parity P discrete symmetries. The analogous puzzle here is the CT or P problem in 1+1d: Why can the $\bar{\theta}$ angle (including the effect of $\theta$ and the co...

The bosonic topological transition (BTT) is a quantum critical point between the bosonic symmetry protected topological phase and the trivial phase. In this work, we derive a description of this transition in terms of compact quantum electrodynamics (QED) with four fermion flavors ($N_f=4$). This allows us to describe the transition in a lattice model with the maximal microscopic symmetry: an internal SO(4) symmetry. Within a systematic renormalization group analysis, we iden...

We believe that the quantum 4-dimensional Minkowski space-time with the force-fields gauge-group structure $SU_c(3) \times SU_L(2) \times U(1) \times SU_f(3)$ built-in from the very beginning is the background for everything. Thus, the self-repulsive, but ``related'', complex scalar fields $\Phi(1,2)$ (the Standard-Model Higgs), $\Phi(3,1)$ (the purely family Higgs), and $\Phi(3,2)$ (the mixed family Higgs), with the first family label and the second $SU_L(2)$ label, co-exist...

I propose the first multiscalar singlet extension of the Standard Model (SM), that generates tree level top quark and exotic fermion masses as well as one and three loop level masses for charged fermions lighter than the top quark and for light active neutrinos, respectively, without invoking electrically charged scalar fields. That model, which is based on the $S_{3}\times Z_{8}$ discrete symmetry, successfully explains the observed SM fermion mass and mixing pattern. The ch...

The recent ATLAS and CMS experiments show the first observations of a new particle in the search for the Standard Model Higgs boson at the LHC. We revisit the scenario that high-dimensional operators of fermions must be present due to the theoretical inconsistency of the fundamental cutoff (quantum gravity) with the parity-violating gauge symmetry of the Standard Model. Studying the four-fermion interaction of the third quark family, we show that at an intermediate energy thr...

Electroweak theory joins electromagnetism with the weak force in a single quantum field theory, ascribing the two fundamental interactions--so different in their manifestations--to a common symmetry principle. How the electroweak gauge symmetry is hidden is one of the most urgent and challenging questions facing particle physics. The provisional answer incorporated in the "standard model" of particle physics was formulated in the 1960s by Higgs, by Brout & Englert, and by Gur...

The symmetric mass generation (SMG) phase is an insulator in which a single-particle gap is intrinsically opened by the interaction, without involving symmetry spontaneously breaking or topological order. Here, we perform unbiased quantum Monte-Carlo simulation and systematically investigate a bilayer fermionic model hosting Fermi surface SMG in the strongly interacting regime. With increasing interaction strength, the model undergoes a quantum phase transition from an excito...

In cases of both abelian and nonabelian gauge groups, we consider the Higgs mechanism in topologically massive gauge theories in an arbitrary space-time dimension. It is shown that the presence of a topological term makes it possible to shift mass of gauge fields in a nontrivial way compared to the conventional value at the classical tree level. We correct the previous misleading statement with respect to the counting of physical degrees of freedom, where it is shown that gau...

In cases of both abelian and nonabelian gauge groups, we study the Higgs mechanism in the topologically massive gauge theories in an arbitrary space-time dimension. We show that when the conventional Higgs potential coexists with a topological term, gauge fields become massive by 'eating' simultaneously both the Nambu-Goldstone boson and a higher-rank tensor field, and instead a new massless scalar field is 'vomitted' in the physical spectrum. Because of the appearance of thi...