Past exam of the groups and representations course of the University of Oxford 2020 3 e Solution 2026-10-25
The commuting direction in solution provides the correct candidate Lie algebra for a gauge group, . This is a necessary structural condition for the Standard Model, but it does not by itself establish a viable grand unified theory.
The representations in solution do not give a Standard Model fermion generation with the correct weak hypercharges. Use . Identifying with the left-handed quark doublet, whose weak hypercharge is , fixes . But then the doublet in has , whereas the left-handed lepton doublet requires . Its singlet has , whereas a right-handed electron requires . The is a further concrete mismatch: right-handed quarks written as left-handed antiquarks require or , and a rescaling cannot turn zero into either value. These comparisons use the electroweak representation and hypercharge table.
The charge- doublet in does have the required lepton weak hypercharge under this normalization, but the same Adjoint representation also brings a doublet of the opposite charge and an extra triplet. Therefore merely adding that representation does not supply the missing chiral generation without additional states and a mechanism for their masses.
Furthermore is a product of two Simple Lie groups, permitting two independent gauge couplings; it does not enforce a common strong and electroweak gauge coupling. Thus the embedding exists, but the displayed matter content does not furnish a viable minimal unification of the Standard Model. A more elaborate model would require additional representations, consistent chiral matter, anomaly cancellation, and a specified spontaneous symmetry breaking mechanism. The calculations here do not prove that every possible extension using this product group is impossible.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2001 iii Paper 63 4 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Use the electroweak hypercharge normalization , rather than . In the latter convention all tabulated hypercharges would be doubled. The electroweak representation and hypercharge table for one minimal Standard Model generation isThe quarks are colour triplets, the leptons are colour singlets, and all listed right-handed fields are weak singlets. A sterile right-handed neutrino, if added, has representation and changes none of the anomaly traces.
On each left weak doublet, . The electric charges are therefore for and for . On each right singlet , so its electric charge equals its hypercharge. These are the observed quark and lepton charge assignments.
For Standard Model anomaly cancellation, traces must include both components of each doublet and all three colours. Every right weak singlet has , givingOn the left doublets, , while separately in each doublet. ConsequentlyThe linear trace isEquivalently, . This proves cancellation of the mixed weak-hypercharge gauge anomaly within one generation.
The one-generation hypercharge anomaly traces for the cubic condition areThus both required anomaly differences vanish generation by generation. The right-handed subtraction is important: counting all physical fields with the same chirality sign would not give the cubic cancellation.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2002 iii Paper 66 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Use and . For each generation , the leptons areBoth are color singlets. The conjugate antilepton fields transform in the conjugate representations and have opposite hypercharge; they are already included by the conjugate fields in the Lagrangian. The two components of have electric charges , and has charge . There is no right-handed neutrino representation in this field content. These assignments use the electroweak representation and hypercharge table in the same hypercharge normalization as the scalar doublet.
For a doublet of hypercharge , defineThe term is absent for a singlet. Under the local transformation , the gauge fields transform so that . Consequently the required gauge-covariant kinetic terms areThe fields of definite chirality are defined with . Since has hypercharge , the Yukawa interactionis invariant: its hypercharges add to zero, and contracts the two doublet indices. A bare charged-lepton mass violates these assignments. No renormalizable neutrino Yukawa term is available without a right-handed neutrino. A gauge-invariant scalar potential depending on can select the nonzero vacuum, without altering these kinetic and Yukawa constructions.
There is an explicit local unitary gauge transformation whenever :Thus, with the real field ,This proves the polar coordinates for the electroweak Higgs doublet constructively. The gauge choice is local about the nonzero vacuum; it need not be nonsingular at zeros of the doublet.
The three identical-generation kinetic terms permit unitary flavor changes. A singular value decomposition gives with . Rotate both components of each left doublet together, and the right singlets independently. In this basis,The left/right cross terms combine into this Dirac mass. Since the neutrinos have no mass matrix, their simultaneous left rotation preserves a diagonal charged current. This is charged-lepton Yukawa matrix diagonalization; the neutrinos remain massless in the stated renormalizable model.
The scalar kinetic term givesIntroduce and . The combinations , , and therefore diagonalize the quadratic terms:The factor applies to the real neutral field, not to the complex charged field. The massless photon corresponds to the unbroken generator , which annihilates the vacuum. This gives the electroweak doublet gauge-boson mass matrix and its diagonal spectrum.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2003 iii Paper 49 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Use the source convention , with electric charge measured in units of the positron charge. Expanding the covariant derivative in the fermion kinetic term gives interaction . Substituting the given neutral-field rotation, the coefficient of isThe photon coefficient is , with . For a Dirac field, acts only on its left-handed component. ThusThe weak neutral current interaction consequently has the requested form, withThe electroweak representation and hypercharge table gives the following values for one generation:
These neutral-current vector and axial couplings use the source's vertex prefactor . They are twice the coefficients used with prefactor ; the latter convention must not be mixed into this calculation. For the neutrino, the chiral projector removes the inactive right-handed component automatically.
Set and suppress the species label. For outgoing momenta , the amplitude is, up to an irrelevant phase,The final-state spin sum is the Dirac trace of . Anticommutation of with the gamma matrices makes its symmetric partThe vector-axial cross term is proportional to the antisymmetric Levi-Civita symbol, so it contracts to zero with the symmetric massive vector polarization sum . Since , the symmetric tensor is transverse to as well. Only remains, andMultiplying by proves the massless fermion Z decay spin sum:
For the decay width, average over the three initial polarizations. Rotational invariance makes the integrated width the same for each initial spin state, so the massive-vector spin average is legitimate even for a single prepared polarization. In the rest frame, the delta functions in two-body Lorentz-invariant phase space leaveThis follows by setting and integrating ; the radial integration supplies a factor . HenceFor a quark species multiply by three colors, with strong-interaction radiative corrections when comparing with data. For one effectively massless active neutrino, , so .
The total resonance width contains visible charged-lepton and hadron decays plus . Thus the measured invisible contribution determinesEarly resonance measurements supported three light active neutrino species, with experimental uncertainties; the OPAL analysis of its 1989 data explicitly compares the three- and four-species predictions. Under the question's assumption that every possible family has a massless neutrino with ordinary weak couplings, this constrains the number of such families. The inference does not exclude additional neutrinos heavier than or gauge singlet sterile states with no ordinary coupling. This is light-neutrino counting from the Z width.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 47 4 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Use the weak hypercharge normalization . Write and the hypercharge transformation as . A left-handed doublet transforms as , while a right-handed singlet transforms as . The Higgs doublet transforms as .
The representations per fermion generation are:
| Field | in | in | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
There is no right-handed neutrino in the minimal Standard Model. If such a sterile singlet were added, its hypercharge would be zero. The two hypercharge columns give equivalent normalizations, not different physical assignments. This is the electroweak representation and hypercharge table.
Yukawa interactions use for down-type quarks and charged leptons, but for up-type quarks. The conjugate doublet transforms as , using the pseudoreality of the fundamental representation. For example, the hypercharge sums in the down, charged-lepton, and up terms areThe doublet indices contract between and the scalar, and colour indices contract in the quark terms. This verifies gauge invariance.
The indices label fermion generations, specifying which left-handed family and right-handed family are coupled. They are not weak-isospin indices. Each fermion type has its own complex Yukawa matrix. After symmetry breaking these matrices determine masses; the mismatch of the two quark left-handed mass rotations produces the CKM matrix. Left fields are weak doublets, right fields are weak singlets, and the scalar is a hypercharge- doublet in the stated convention.