[Physics] Chiral symmetry breaking and confusion with terminology

chiralityelectroweakgroup-representationshiggssymmetry-breaking

I am confused about Chiral symmetry breaking and the terminology we use. First of all, I think the symmetry is started with taking quark masses zero and writing the Lagrangian as;
$$
L=-\frac{1}{4}(F_{\mu \nu}^a)^2 + \bar{u}(i \not{D})u+\bar{d}(i \not{D})d
$$
without any mass term. There is SU(2) isospin symmetry here, for sure. But if one write down quark fields as doublets, one conclude with
$$
SU(2)_L\times SU(2)_R
$$

Question1 : Why we start with SU(2) isospin symmetry and then enlarge it $$
SU(2)_L\times SU(2)_R?
$$
(approach in many textbooks.) Why we need to declare the fields as doublets? The Lagrangian was already invariant under isospin transformations. And is this the so-called Chiral symmetry?(multiplets of left and right handed particles?)

Question2 If it is so, where is hypercharge conservation? How about
$$
SU(2)_L \times U(1)_\Upsilon
$$
symmetry? Is this still conserved while chiral SSB is broken?

Question3 If
$$
SU(2)_L\times SU(2)_R \to SU(2)_F
$$
is the isospin symmetry, the phrase "only left handed fermions interact via weak interactions" is only phenomenological or what? Do we see it in nature?

I may be confused electroweak symmetry breaking and chiral SSB. Anyway, correct me if I am wrong in any postulate.

Best Answer

Question 1

First of all, when you discuss chiral symmetry spontaneous breaking, you need to assume pure QCD theory.

QCD lagrangian with $u-,d-,s-$quarks (they have relatively small masses in compare with $b, t, c$-quarks) has the form $$ \tag 1 L_{QCD} = \bar{q}_{i}i\gamma_{\mu}D^{\mu}_{ij}q_{j} - \frac{1}{4}G_{\mu \nu}^{a}G^{\mu \nu}_{a} - \bar{q}_{ij}M^{ij}q_{j} $$ In high energy limis, when we may neglect the mass term in compare with kinetic term, $(1)$ is invariant under combined vector-axial $SU_{V}(3)\times SU_{A}(3)$ global transformation, precisely $$ q \to e^{iq_{V}t_{a}\epsilon_{a} + iq_{A}t_{a}\theta_{a}}q, $$ where $t_{a}$ is $3\times 3$ Gell-Mann matrices. Here I don't take into account broken by QCD anomaly vector-axial $U(1)$ part of restored symmetry.

By introducing left-right chirality projectors, we may state that $$ \tag 2 SU_{V}(3)\times SU_{A}(3)\sim SU_{L}(3)\times SU_{R}(3) $$ To summarize, we have important statement that $SU_{L}(3)\times SU_{R}(3)$ becomes exact symmetry at high energies. $SU_{L}(3)\times SU_{R}(3)$ group is called chiral symmetry group of QCD lagrangian.

This statement implies existense of extra physical states which have same values of spin, strangeness and the baryon number as experimentally observed ones, but with opposite parity. Since we don't see these states, but below energy scale $E\sim \Lambda_{QCD} \sim 0.1 \text{ GeV}$ we see approximately massless meson states, we have to require that aproximate $SU_{L}(3)\times SU_{R}(3)$ symmetry is spontaneously broken in QCD by itself down to $SU_{\text{diag}}(3)$ at scales $\sim \Lambda_{QCD}$. It is broken by quark bilinear form VEV, namely $\langle |\bar{u}u|\rangle \sim \Lambda_{QCD}^3$. In the result, we have pseudogoldstone bosons octet - $\pi^{0, \pm}, \eta^{0} , K^{0}, \bar{K}^{0, \pm}$.

Suppose now we neglect the $s-$quark contribution into such picture. Then we deal with SSB $SU_{L}(2)\times SU_{R}(2)$ down to $SU_{\text{diag}}(2)$. $SU_{\text{diag}}(2)$ in this case is the group of isospin transformation. It is not exact, however since masses of $u-,d-$quarks are not the same: for example, this drives the pure QCD reaction $$ d + d \to He^{4} + \pi^{0} $$ which doesn't conserve the isospin.

Questions 2 and 3

QCD chiral symmetry in principle has nothing common to electroweak symmetry. First of all, QCD chiral symmetry group is global symmetry of quark triplets transformation, left and right, while electroweak symmetry group is combined local $SU(2)$ transformation of left quark weak doublets and their local $U_{Y}(1)$ trasformation: $$ \begin{pmatrix} u \\ d\end{pmatrix} \to e^{i\frac{1-\gamma_{5}}{2}Q_{L}\sigma_{a}\epsilon_{a}(x) + iQ_{Y}\theta (x)}\begin{pmatrix} u \\ d\end{pmatrix} $$ Electroweak symmetry possesses interactions, while chiral QCD symmetry just state global conservation of chiral charges (i.e., there isn't associated interaction). But if we include electroweak symmetry to $(1)$, then even if we completely neglect the quark masses, the chiral symmetry becomes explicitly (on the level of action), not spontaneously (on the level of states which is described by action) broken because of chiral nature of electroweak group. For example, electromagnetic breaking of isospin symmetry, which breaks $SU(2)$ isospin symmetry down to symmetry transformation generated by $\sigma_{3} = \begin{pmatrix} 1 & 0 \\ 0 & -1\end{pmatrix}$, makes the contribution in the masses of $\pi^{\pm}$ mesons, so that they become different from the mass of $\pi^{0}$ meson, while QCD predicts precisely exact equality of these masses.

Next, electroweak group symmetry is also spontaneously broken at scale $\approx 240\text{ GeV}$, namely $$ SU_{L}(2)\times U_{Y}(1) \to U_{EM}(1), $$ by VEV of Higgs field doublet $\langle|H |\rangle \sim v$. The scales $\Lambda_{QCD}, v$ are different, and in general has different nature.

Finally, the fact that only left charged currents (i.e., $\bar{u}\gamma_{\mu}\left(\frac{1- \gamma_{5}}{2}\right)d$) interact with electroweak sector comes from the experiment. Your statement that only left fermions interact electroweakly is incorrect, since all electrically charged right particles interact with EM field as well as left, and all right particles interact with $Z-$boson too.

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