A nonstandard Standard Model.

This paper examines the Standard Model under the strong–electroweak symmetry group S U S (3) × U EW (2) subject to the Lie algebra condition EW (2) ≇ I (2) ⊕ Y (1). Physically, the condition ensures that all electroweak gauge bosons interact with each other prior to symmetry breaking — as one might expect from U (2) invariance. This represents a crucial shift in the identification of physical gauge bosons: Unlike the Standard Model which posits a change of Lie algebra basis induced by spontaneous symmetry breaking, here the basis is unaltered and A, Z 0 , W ± represent the physical bosons both before and after spontaneous symmetry breaking. Our choice of EW (2) requires some modification of the matter field representation of the Standard Model. The group U EW (2) admits two pertinent defining representations, 2 and its U (2) -conjugate 2 c , related by a large gauge transformation. Accordingly, the product group structure calls for strong–electroweak degrees of freedom in the (3 , 2) and the (3 , 2 c ) of S U S (3) × U EW (2) that possess integer electric charge just like leptons. These degrees of freedom play the role of quarks, and they lead to a modified Lagrangian that nevertheless reproduces transition rates and cross-sections equivalent to the Standard Model. In particular, they reproduce the fractional electric charge of quark currents. The close resemblance between quark and lepton electroweak doublets in this picture suggests a mechanism for a speculative phase transition between quarks and leptons that stems from the product structure of the symmetry group. Our hypothesis is that the strong and electroweak bosons see each other as a source of decoherence. In effect, lepton representations get identified with the S U (3) -trace-reduced quark representations. This mechanism allows for possible extensions of the Standard Model that do not require large inclusive multiplets of matter fields and might explain the Higgs as a pseudo Nambu–Goldstone boson. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]