The University of Southampton
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# Aspects of unified field theories

Sithikong, Piyapong (1981) Aspects of unified field theories. University of Southampton, Doctoral Thesis.

Record type: Thesis (Doctoral)

## Abstract

This thesis consists of two parts. In PART I we derive lower bounds on Higgs boson masses in the SU(2)xU(l) unified weak and electromagnetic theory and in the SU(5) grand unified theory. The bounds are obtained by demanding that the effective potential has a global minimum at a non-zero vacuum expectation value of the scalar fields in order that the symmetry of the theory is spontaneously broken. PART II is devoted to the study of superfields. The concept of superfields was introduced by Salam and Strathdee who assumed the existence of Superfields tA(x.O), defined over superspace (x,e). xu are the ordinary space-time coordinates and ea are components of anticommuting Majorana spinors. The indices A are usually taken to be Lorentz indices. Since a superfield is also defined over anticommuting parameters ea, a question which naturally arises is: Why are the indices A restricted to be Lorentz indices only and not extended to include some other indices corresponding to ea? Starting from the supersymmetry algebra, we construct the superfields tA(x,e) using the method of auxiliary group and show that the indices A are 'Lorentz' indices. 'However, they are not the usual Lorentz indices of space-time but correspond to a group which is isomorphic to the usual Lorentz group.

Published date: 1981

## Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 460451
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/460451
PURE UUID: 96e15dac-025c-4c5f-b5cd-014e5de3bd69

## Catalogue record

Date deposited: 04 Jul 2022 18:22

## Contributors

Author: Piyapong Sithikong