Large Grants
Mini-Grants
University of Massachusetts
Project Title
Emergent Gauge Symmetry
Project Summary
In our theories of the fundamental interactions, symmetries are often used to help define the nature of the theory. In searching for new theories, most investigators expect that the new theory will have more symmetry than we see visible at ordinary energies. This sometimes makes the theory simpler or more beautiful. However, the link from such a simple theory to our complicated world must then also be complicated. The present project explores the possibility that the fundamental theory has very little symmetry. In this case, the symmetry that we do see at ordinary energies must emerge dynamically from the less symmetric starting point. There are suggestions that this emergence can in fact occur and the point of the present project is to build on these possibilities to construct a complete theory of the fundamental interactions in which the basic interactions emerge dynamically.
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