Accidental massless radial modes beyond Goldstone modes
ID: accidental-massless-radial-modes-beyond-goldstone-modes
The Goldstone theorem guarantees zero directions tangent to the vacuum orbit, not the absence of other zero eigenvalues. For , , the minima form the same sphere as in ordinary breaking, but the entire Hessian matrix vanishes there. Thus all n scalar quadratic masses vanish, although only n-1 are symmetry-protected Goldstone bosons. Exact Goldstone counting requires nonzero curvature transverse to the orbit.
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