Summary
The degenerate vacuum formalism is developed for spin-1 Goldstone particles with an indefinite metric. This formalism eliminates the ambiguities in the early treatments and shows that there is no inconsistency with Poincaré invariance. It is argued that if the photon were a Goldstone particle there would be observable consequences, such as apparent angular-momentum nonconservation and violation of the principle of detailed balance.
Riassunto
Si sviluppa il formalismo del vuoto degenere per particelle di Goldstone con spin 1 con una metrica indefinita. Questo formalismo elimina le ambiguità dei trattamenti precedenti e mostra che non vi è alcuna inconsistenza con l’invarianza di Poincaré. Se ne deduce che, se il fotone fosse una particella di Goldstone, si avrebbero conseguenze osservabili, come l’apparente non conservazione del momento angolare e la violazione del principio di bilanciamento dettagliato.
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References
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Sen, R.N., Weil, C. Is the photon a goldstone particle?. Nuov Cim A 6, 581–593 (1971). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02723389
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02723389