Scalar electrodynamics ($\mathcal{L}=-\frac{1}{4}{f}^2+|D\varphi {|}^2-V(|\varphi {|}^2)$)

A charged scalar field coupled to an Abelian gauge field through $D_{\mu }={\partial }_{\mu }-ie{a}_{\mu }$. Under $\varphi \mapsto e^{i\alpha }\varphi$ and $a_{\mu }\mapsto a_{\mu }+e^{-1}{\partial }_{\mu }\alpha$, its gauge covariant derivative transforms with the same phase. The potential determines whether the perturbative spectrum has a massless photon or exhibits the Higgs mechanism.

With scalar charges $e$ and $2e$, both $\psi$ and ${\varphi }^2$ transform with phase $e^{2i\alpha }$. Therefore $M^2|\psi -b{\varphi }^2{|}^2$ is a gauge-invariant potential term. It contains a nonzero direct cubic interaction $-M^2(b{\psi }^{\ast }{\varphi }^2+h.c.)$. Adding positive quadratic and quartic modulus terms gives a real bounded-below potential. All expanded interactions have field degree at most four.