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Varieties of electrically charged physical states in SU(2)×U(1) lattice gauge Higgs theory

Jeff Greensite

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Phys. Rev. D 114, 034514 – Published 18 August, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/b6vw-gxg5

Abstract

We consider a quenched SU(2)×U(1) gauge Higgs theory on the lattice, coupled to a static vectorlike fermion which, in this case, is in the same gauge group representation as the Higgs field. Physical (i.e., locally gauge invariant) electrically charged and electrically neutral states of matter particles in the electroweak theory were described decades ago, but those constructions do not exhaust all the possibilities, and new types of electrically charged/neutral states, orthogonal to former constructions, are described here. The difference has to do with how the static source, which by itself does not create a physical state, is dressed by dynamical fields. We find that, unsurprisingly, the neutral static fermion is much lighter than any of the charged fermion states. But a lattice study of the propagation of the charged fermion states indicates the existence of (at least) two particle states with different masses in charged particle spectrum.

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Phys. Rev. D 114, 034514– Published 18 August, 2026
  • Received 26 April 2026
  • Accepted 30 July 2026
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