History of electroweak symmetry breaking
Abstract
In this talk, I recall the history of the development of the unified electroweak theory, incorporating the symmetry-breaking Higgs mechanism, as I saw it from my standpoint as a member of Abdus Salam's group at Imperial College. I start by describing the state of physics in the years after the Second World War, explain how the goal of a unified gauge theory of weak and electromagnetic interactions emerged, the obstacles encountered, in particular the Goldstone theorem, and how they were overcome, followed by a brief account of more recent history, culminating in the historic discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012.
- Publication:
-
Journal of Physics Conference Series
- Pub Date:
- July 2015
- DOI:
- 10.1088/1742-6596/626/1/012001
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1502.06276
- Bibcode:
- 2015JPhCS.626a2001K
- Keywords:
-
- Physics - History and Philosophy of Physics;
- High Energy Physics - Experiment;
- High Energy Physics - Phenomenology;
- High Energy Physics - Theory
- E-Print:
- 10 pages. Text of an invited talk at DICE2014, Castiglioncello, September 2014 and also at DISCRETE2014, King's College London, December 2014