In a Dirac field mode expansion, the antiparticle contribution to first appears with operator order . Normal ordering changes it to using the fermionic anticommutation relations. Thus its scattering coefficient is . Pair-annihilation and creation terms have the operator orders and . Keeping these orders and a fixed external-state convention determines interference signs, especially between exchange and annihilation graphs in a Yukawa interaction.
Without a symmetry excluding odd scalar powers, a real-scalar Yukawa interaction with a massive Dirac field requires a general scalar potential through degree four. For a constant background, the fermion mass becomes , and its divergent local determinant contribution contains . Linear and cubic terms are therefore generated when . A zero renormalized tadpole is a renormalization condition, not a prohibition of its counterterm. An exact discrete chiral symmetry in a massless fermion theory can instead enforce an even scalar potential.
A Dirac field theory invariant under , has a conserved global charge, subject to the quantum theory preserving the symmetry. In particle language this charge counts particles minus antiparticles. When the S-matrix commutes with it, a scattering amplitude between states of different charge vanishes. A neutral scalar and a Yukawa interaction preserve the charge, so a process with one incoming Dirac particle and only one outgoing Dirac antiparticle plus neutral particles is forbidden. This net charge is distinct from a sum of positive occupation numbers for all particle and antiparticle modes.
Electroweak representation and hypercharge table Created 2026-10-06 Updated 2026-10-14
In normalization , the left quark doublet has , right up/down singlets have , the left lepton doublet has , the right charged lepton has , and the Higgs doublet has . The alternative convention uses . Up-type Yukawa interactions use the conjugate doublet of hypercharge .
Keep the PDF's hypercharge signs, which are the negatives of the frequently used convention. Write for the displayed chiral superfields. Their gauge group representations are conjugate right-handed-matter representations; their Weyl spinor components are left-chiral charge conjugates. Thus assign baryon number , , and lepton number , , with both Higgs fields neutral under . The corresponding electromagnetic convention is .
Let contract the two weak doublets, and use the color Levi-Civita symbol for three color antitriplets. The most general homogeneous cubic superpotential with right-handed-neutrino superfields separates as , where
and
Repeated generation and color indices are summed. The four Yukawa coupling matrices are arbitrary. The weak and color contractions imply and , while is completely symmetric. The terms have ; has ; and have respectively . Their conjugate interactions have the opposite changes. All four Yukawa terms preserve both numbers; all five remaining types violate at least one. In particular, the neutral fields printed in the PDF require both and terms.
For completeness of this list, a cubic color gauge-invariant can contain a – or – pair and one colorless doublet, or three color antitriplets. Vanishing hypercharge gives , , and . Three doublets have no weak singlet. Among colorless terms, two doublets and a singlet give , , and ; the apparent contraction vanishes since the identical bosonic superfields commute. Three singlets yield only . This also explains why no omitted cubic monomial is available. The word cubic excludes the linear term and the quadratic , , terms; these are separate possible terms in the full renormalizable superpotential.
To demonstrate squark-mediated proton decay, take and with or . Identical down-flavor indices would make vanish. Both interactions couple to the same scalar of mass . Suppressing overall convention-dependent vertex signs, their relevant two-component fermion bilinears are
The color index on is contracted with that on ; Lorentz spinor indices within each bilinear are contracted too. Together with , its algebraic equation at momenta small compared with gives . Substitution gives , whose cross term is the four-fermion matching for squark-mediated proton decay
Its electron term contains three quark fields of flavors and a lepton, and changes baryon number and lepton number together. The Hermitian-conjugate terms describe both orientations of the process. The hadronic matrix element of the three-quark proton-decay operator between a proton and a neutral pion has the right quantum numbers and is not forbidden by a remaining symmetry. Hence the operator permits : the lepton field creates the positron and the three-quark matrix element connects the proton to the pion. This supplies the mechanism rather than merely naming the two violating interactions.
Each fermion field has mass dimension , so this effective operator has dimension six and coefficient . By dimensional analysis its contribution to the decay rate has the form
Here collects phase space, running and the dimensionless hadronic factor; a dimensional estimate takes it of order unity rather than pretending to calculate a strong-interaction matrix element. Assuming this exchange dominates and there is no tuned cancellation, the supplied lifetime gives the proton-lifetime bound on a product of R-parity-violating couplings
The last estimate uses and . Keeping instead changes to about . A numerical limit independent of the squark mass or hadronic factor is not determined by the supplied data.
Finally, matter parity is : all matter chiral superfields, including , are odd, and the Higgs chiral superfields are even. R-parity of a component field is . In a superpotential, the spin factor is irrelevant to the allowed monomials: each of has two odd matter factors and is even. Each of has three odd matter factors, and has one, so all are odd and forbidden. Higgs vacuum expectation values are even; the allowed Yukawa interactions therefore still generate ordinary fermion masses.
R-parity forbids all the baryon/lepton-number-violating cubic terms above, not every possible violating operator. In particular, is even under matter parity but changes lepton number by two: matter parity allows Majorana neutrino masses. Thus the literal unrestricted claim would be false for these very fields; its valid cubic interpretation gives precisely the requested exclusion while preserving the Yukawa coupling mass terms.
Use and . For each generation , the leptons are
Both 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 , define
The term is absent for a singlet. Under the local transformation , the gauge fields transform so that . Consequently the required gauge-covariant kinetic terms are
The fields of definite chirality are defined with . Since has hypercharge , the Yukawa interaction
is 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 gives
Introduce 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.
Let the masses of and be and , respectively. Write their external four-momenta as , with and . The condition opens the two-body decay phase space. Use mostly-minus Minkowski spacetime, the Dirac propagator , and the convention that an amputated connected diagram contributes .
There is no tree-level three-scalar Feynman vertex in the displayed interaction. The leading decay amplitude has one Yukawa interaction and two Yukawa interactions, so is of order . The Yukawa fermion triangle is:
Figure 1.
Fermion triangle for scalar decay with its loop-momentum routing and Yukawa vertex factors
. Details.
The two inequivalent cyclic orderings around the fermion loop are related by reversal and interchange of . They give equal integrals: reversing all internal four-momenta leaves the masses and denominators unchanged, and the scalar gamma matrix trace identities below give the same numerator. Both must be included. The closed fermion loop sign supplies , and each ordering has the product
There is no extra in the decay amplitude. Such a factor belongs to integration over the identical-particle final phase space when calculating a decay rate.
Route , , and define , and similarly for . A regulated leading decay amplitude is
Here dimensional regularization preserves translation of the loop momentum, and is its reference mass scale. Factors account for the loop's dimension; dimensionally continued couplings can equivalently carry these powers. No occurs in this scalar loop, so there is no regularization ambiguity.
Using gamma matrix trace identities, traces with an odd number of gamma matrices vanish, while and . Thus the numerator simplifies completely to
For a reduction to standard scalar integrals, disregard the vanishing infinitesimals only in the numerator. Since up to those infinitesimals,
Define the scalar bubble and scalar triangle Feynman integral by
Cancelling each denominator in turn gives two bubbles with external invariant and one with invariant . Therefore
This explicitly displays the complete gamma matrix trace simplification, the two loop orientations and the overall phase convention.
There is a renormalization qualification to this answer. For the loop is logarithmically divergent; retaining just the unregulated four-dimensional integral would not specify a finite physical decay amplitude. To see the divergence, a Feynman parameter and a shifted loop momentum give
The scalar triangle Feynman integral is ultraviolet finite. Hence
A cubic counterterm from a Yukawa fermion triangle, , contributes to and cancels the pole with . This is an instance of counterterm closure of a massive Yukawa theory. After subtraction the physical answer is , where a renormalization condition fixes the finite cubic coupling . The displayed interaction alone does not supply that condition. For example, setting at a specified subtraction scale defines one prescription for the loop-induced decay. The regulated expressions above remain the lowest-order loop answer without such extra data. For the trace, and therefore this scalar triangle contribution, vanishes identically.
Now take the Hermitian pseudoscalar Yukawa interaction with the sign printed in the PDF. Varying with respect to the Dirac adjoint gives the Dirac equation
Varying with respect to and integrating by parts gives the adjoint Dirac equation
The factor in the coupling matters: is anti-Hermitian, so this factor makes the interaction Hermitian for real .
For the axial-current divergence for scalar and pseudoscalar backgrounds, set and . The two equations are equivalently
In the divergence of the axial current, use and :
Thus
This is the classical field-equation identity requested here. It includes explicit breaking by both backgrounds; it is not a claim that a renormalized quantum axial current has no chiral anomaly when gauge interactions are present.
The Yukawa interaction has one real-scalar leg and an oriented fermion line at each vertex. At lowest connected order, two vertices exchange one scalar, so the diagrams are of order .
For two incoming fermions, there are two pairings of the outgoing fermions: the channel joins to and to , with scalar momentum ; the channel joins to and to , with scalar momentum . Fermion number conservation excludes an annihilation channel for two particles carrying the same charge.
For an incoming fermion and antiparticle, there is a -channel scalar exchange with momentum and an -channel annihilation and recreation diagram with momentum . Arrows on antiparticle lines run opposite to the direction of physical propagation. These are the four tree scattering in Yukawa theory diagrams shown below; all external momenta are labelled.
Figure 1.
Tree-level scalar-exchange diagrams for fermion–fermion and fermion–antifermion scattering; incoming states on the left
. Details.
The crossing in the -channel drawing is not a vertex. Dashed internal lines are the real scalar field; solid arrows show fermion-number flow.
Quark mixing arises because the up-type and down-type quark Yukawa matrices need not be diagonal in the same weak interaction basis. In the Standard Model the three left-handed quark doublets transform as under , whereas and transform as and . With a Higgs doublet and its conjugate , the gauge-invariant Yukawa interaction is
The generation indices are matrix-multiplied. Electroweak symmetry breaking, , produces and .
Each complex fermion mass matrix admits a biunitary diagonalization,
where the diagonal entries are real nonnegative quark masses. Define and , and similarly for right-handed fields. The kinetic terms retain their canonical form because the transformations are unitary matrices. However, the weak charged current becomes
This unitary matrix is the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix. Its entries multiply transitions between up-type and down-type mass eigenstates. The minimal Standard Model has no analogous right-handed charged weak current.
Quark mixing does not introduce tree-level flavor-changing neutral currents. Photon, gluon and weak neutral current couplings are proportional to the identity within each fixed-charge quark sector, and . The single Higgs doublet also has diagonal neutral scalar field couplings after the same transformations that diagonalize the masses. At higher loop orders, flavor changes are possible. For example, an amplitude contains . Unitarity of the CKM matrix sets the sum of coefficients to zero, cancelling any mass-independent part. This is the GIM mechanism; mass splittings leave a suppressed, generally nonzero amplitude.
For generations a unitary matrix has real parameters: mixing angles and phases. Rephasing the up-type and down-type quark fields removes phases; a common baryon number phase leaves every matrix entry unchanged. Hence the physical numbers are
Two generations therefore give a real Cabibbo rotation,
with strangeness-changing charged-current transitions suppressed by . Three generations have three mixing angles and one irreducible weak CP phase. This counting assumes nondegenerate masses; degeneracies allow additional basis rotations.
Writing and , a standard exact parametrization is
Complex entries alone do not establish CP violation, because quark quantum field rephasings can change their phases. For nondegenerate quark masses the weak mixing sector conserves CP precisely when a basis makes real. A useful invariant test is the Jarlskog invariant,
A nonzero requires all three mixing angles and a nontrivial phase. If two same-charge quark masses coincide, the additional basis freedom removes the corresponding physical CP effect. The possible QCD theta angle is a separate CP parameter, not part of this weak-mixing count.
The Wolfenstein parametrization displays the hierarchy of quark mixing economically. Put , , and . Expanding the exact matrix gives
The observed pattern is predominantly diagonal, with - mixing largest and -, - mixing successively suppressed. The expansion implies . The truncated matrix must not be treated as an exactly unitary matrix.
Column orthogonality gives
The three complex numbers form a CKM unitarity triangle, with area . Dividing by puts its vertices at , and , where . The barred parameters include higher-order corrections to the Wolfenstein parameters. Comparing independent measurements of its sides and angles tests both quark mixing and the absence of additional flavor dynamics.
Semileptonic decay rates determine magnitudes of CKM entries through factors once hadronic matrix elements are controlled. Neutral kaon and neutral B-meson mixing constrain products of entries through weak box scattering amplitudes. CP asymmetries probe their invariant relative phases, with kaon mixing providing indirect CP violation and decay amplitudes providing direct CP violation. These processes complement tests of the unitarity constraints on rows and columns. The minimal three-generation Standard Model describes weak quark mixing by a unitary matrix with three angles and one physical CP phase; it does not predict the Yukawa couplings or their hierarchy.
Use the canonical chiral-superfield component expansion in chiral coordinates, with . Multiplication of the Grassmann variables gives
For example, the two linear-in- factors in contribute , while each of the three choices of the remaining scalar in gives the same contribution. Thus the required F-term is
Adding its Hermitian conjugate and the canonical term eliminates the auxiliary field through and yields the F-term scalar potential
It is nonnegative, and for its absolute minima are and , each with zero energy. They coincide when . If , only is a minimum; if , every is a minimum. These exhaust the local minima as well: at any other stationary point forces ; for this is , whose quadratic variation has opposite signs in two real directions and is a saddle.
Expand around , writing . The scalar potential and fermionic terms are
The canonical kinetic term is . Its quadratic potential is , while the Weyl fermion has mass . Hence
At the other minimum, , so the same mass equality holds. The quartic and Yukawa interaction are both fixed by : defining and gives
This is the supersymmetric relation between quartic and Yukawa couplings. The printed equality of the two couplings refers to their common supersymmetric origin; literal equality of the conventional coefficients and is not true for arbitrary . If instead the Yukawa term is defined as , then and .
To establish perturbative superpotential non-renormalization, use a Wilsonian effective action with a fixed positive infrared cutoff, so integrating out modes does not introduce massless infrared singularities. Promote to nondynamical chiral superfields, or spurions. The holomorphic superpotential depends holomorphically on , not on their complex conjugates. Assign an ordinary charge and an R-charge by
The superspace coordinate has , so has charge and must have R-charge . Both original monomials satisfy the two selection rules. A holomorphic perturbative monomial must obey
which gives and . Equivalently,
The nonnegative integer follows from perturbative analyticity in . Regularity as at the fixed Wilsonian cutoff excludes , which would require negative powers of . The remaining quadratic coefficient is fixed to by the free theory at . The coefficient is : a three-point contribution at first order in has just one cubic vertex, uses all three legs externally, and cannot contain a loop. A loop correction would require additional interactions, whereas the selection rules and holomorphy have already excluded the corresponding monomials. Therefore
This proof concerns the local Wilsonian superpotential. The Kähler potential can acquire a wave-function factor , and canonical normalization changes the couplings to and . Such running, and nonlocal infrared terms in a one-particle-irreducible action, do not contradict the holomorphic result.
Assume global four-dimensional N=1 supersymmetry with canonical kinetic terms and no explicit gaugino mass. Write and . To match the displayed stationarity equation, use ; this differs by a minus sign from the eliminated auxiliary field in the component convention of Solution 2. The real D-terms are , with Hermitian gauge generators. A constant Fayet–Iliopoulos term is permitted only for an appropriate Abelian factor. The scalar potential is
Differentiate with respect to , holding independent:
Thus stationary point conditions gives the first requested identity. Gauge invariance of the superpotential gives . Conjugating it and using Hermiticity gives , the second condition in the form needed below.
At the vacuum, define and . The two conditions combine as
Here the upper equation is stationarity and the lower equation is conjugated gauge invariance. The chiral-superfield fermion mass matrix contributes , and the gauge Yukawa interaction contributes the mixed chiral-fermion/gaugino bilinear. With canonical Weyl fermion and gaugino kinetic terms, and choosing the gaugino phase to put the mixed bilinear in real-sign convention, these terms are
The factor is important: the matrix directly acting on the printed is the same mass bilinear with rescaled gauginos, rather than literally the canonical matrix. In detail, for ,
Since supersymmetry breaking makes this vector nonzero, there is at least one zero mass eigenvalue. A normalized massless fermion is
With the consistent gaugino phase, the inhomogeneous vacuum supersymmetry transformation of is proportional to the same vector . Therefore shifts by a nonzero constant times the transformation parameter: it is the Goldstino, the Goldstone fermion of broken global supersymmetry. The argument guarantees at least one Goldstino zero mode, not the absence of other massless fermions.
For the second calculation, first take only canonical chiral superfields and F-term breaking. At a stationary vacuum , let , and
These follow by differentiating twice. The quadratic scalar potential is
The doubled scalar mass matrix has blocks
Transforming to the canonically normalized real components of preserves its trace, so the sum of real scalar mass squares is . The Weyl fermion mass squares are the eigenvalues of and their sum is . Each Weyl mass eigenstate has two physical spin states. The printed supertrace has scalar sign and fermion weight , hence
The frequently used boson-minus-fermion definition has the opposite overall sign and gives the same zero. The mixing block can split scalar masses but cannot change this trace. This proves the tree-level supertrace mass sum rule; it uses canonical kinetic terms and a renormalizable global theory, rather than a general supergravity or noncanonical effective theory.
In the MSSM, trying to make all squarks and sleptons heavy through direct canonical tree-level F-term breaking encounters this constraint. In an unbroken electric-charge and color sector, the scalar mass-squared trace is twice the trace for its ordinary fermionic partners. More explicitly, take a unit vector minimizing . For , choose so that . The curvature along this real scalar direction is then at most , so at least one scalar mass square is no larger than the smallest fermion mass square in that sector. For one isolated pair the scalar masses are . Thus light quarks can force an unacceptably light squark, or a tachyon, under these assumptions. A hidden supersymmetry-breaking sector with mediation produces effective soft supersymmetry breaking; radiative effects, noncanonical kinetic terms, or supergravity can change the assumptions and allow a viable spectrum. The trace over an arbitrary enlarged theory alone would not locate the light state in the visible sector; the MSSM conclusion uses the conserved-charge block structure.
Use left-chiral superfields throughout, abbreviating the conjugate singlets by , , and . The printed hypercharge convention is the negative of the usual one, so ; consequently is the down-type and the up-type Higgs doublet. Write for the weak-doublet contraction. Assign baryon number , , and lepton number , ; both Higgs fields have .
The baryon number and lepton number conserving homogeneous cubic superpotential is
Each term has zero hypercharge, is a color and weak singlet, and has . Higgs expectation values give the usual quark and charged-lepton Yukawa interaction masses and, here, Dirac neutrino masses. The complete remaining cubic part is
The first two terms have , the third has , the fourth has , and the last has . Their Hermitian conjugates reverse these signs. Commutativity of chiral superfields and the antisymmetric weak/color contractions give and ; can be taken completely symmetric. All other coupling tensors are unrestricted complex tensors.
To check completeness, a cubic color singlet containing a quark doublet and an antiquark singlet must contain a colorless weak doublet; the allowed hypercharges give , and . Three color-antitriplet singlets can form a singlet with , but hypercharge permits only . Three quark doublets cannot be a weak singlet. With no colored fields, an even number of weak doublets is necessary. Two doublets and a singlet give precisely , , and ; contractions of two identical Higgs superfields vanish. With no doublets the only neutral triple is . Thus is the most general homogeneous cubic superpotential for the printed fields, including their singlet neutrinos.
If “cubic” is intended to mean a polynomial of degree at most three, also add
The term conserves both charges; the other nonconstant terms have respectively . This distinction will matter for the printed claim about R-parity.
For squark-mediated proton decay, choose and with or . The same down-type singlet squark can appear in both vertices; would give by antisymmetry. The first term includes an electron/up-quark/squark vertex, and the second an up-quark/down-quark/squark vertex. Exchanging a squark of mass and expanding its propagator at momenta much smaller than produces the dimension-six effective operator
The left- and right-handed pairs are separately contracted spinor bilinears. This operator converts an up/down quark pair into a positron and an antiquark; the spectator up quark can combine with the antiquark into the neutral pion. Equivalently its hadronic matrix element between a proton and a pion is permitted, so it induces . Having both the baryon number and lepton number violating vertices is what enables this channel.
Since has mass dimension , dimensional analysis gives
The dimensionless includes the hadronic matrix element and two-body phase space; the pion mass changes this factor rather than the leading dimensions. Dimensional grounds alone do not give a precise hadronic coefficient. Using the lifetime supplied in the paper, rather than substituting a different bound, gives and hence
For an illustrative squark this is about when is rounded to . The bound constrains the relevant flavour product and depends on the exchanged mass; separate smallness of each coupling does not follow without an additional assumption.
Define matter parity and R-parity by
Every matter superfield has , whereas and the vector superfields have . For ordinary quarks and antiquarks, is odd and , so . For charged leptons, neutrinos and their antiparticles, is odd and , again giving ; the singlet neutrino fermion obeys the same rule. Gluons, the photon, and have and spin one, hence ; Higgs bosons have and also . Thus every Standard Model particle is R-even, including the corresponding antiparticles. Changing spin by one half within a supermultiplet reverses , so squarks, sleptons, gauginos and Higgsinos are R-odd.
Each conserving cubic term contains two R-odd matter superfields and one even Higgs superfield, so it is even under matter parity. Each term in has an odd number of matter superfields: three for , and one for . All are therefore forbidden. At the component level the two fermion spin factors in a Yukawa interaction multiply to , so the same selection rule follows directly from R-parity. This verifies all cubic baryon/lepton-number violating terms are forbidden while the Yukawa fermion mass terms survive.
The blanket assertion needs a qualification beyond homogeneous cubic terms. The Higgs term is even; and are odd and forbidden. But is even and permits a Majorana neutrino mass despite violating lepton number by two. Likewise the higher-dimensional operators and are even. Consequently R-parity alone does not enforce all-order conservation of baryon number and lepton number, or absolute proton stability; the stated precise exclusion holds for the violating cubic interactions above.
Two physical implications follow from multiplicative conservation of R-parity. Superpartners are produced in even numbers from an initial state consisting only of Standard Model particles, leading to pair production at the lowest threshold and parity-conserving cascades. The lightest supersymmetric particle is stable, since one R-odd particle cannot decay exclusively into R-even particles and no lighter R-odd state is available. A neutral weakly interacting lightest supersymmetric particle can therefore be a dark-matter candidate and produce missing-energy signatures; neutrality and a suitable abundance require further model assumptions.
The Noether gauging procedure begins with a rigid symmetry parameter . Replacing it by leaves in the action variation a term proportional to . Introduce a gauge field whose variation contains and couple it to the Noether current to cancel that term. The new coupling produces further variations, so both the action and transformation laws are corrected successively in the coupling constant until local invariance is obtained. Covariant derivatives organize this iterative completion.
For the Wess–Zumino model, the parameter is a spinor and the current is the supercurrent. Its derivative part has the structure , up to the fixed Majorana spinor normalization and improvements. The gauge field is the spin- gravitino , with leading transformation . A coupling of to that current cancels the derivative of the local parameter. Since the commutator of two local supersymmetries includes a spacetime transformation, the vierbein and gravity must participate as well. This gives the Wess-Zumino chiral multiplet coupled to supergravity.
The terms displayed in the final expression have the following distinct roles:
The last two interactions are part of the higher-order local supersymmetry completion. They can be organized through the composite Kähler connection in the fermion derivatives, or derived by eliminating the corresponding supergravity auxiliary connection. Matter fermions and gravitini carry the appropriate chiral Kähler weights, fixing the relative current couplings. They are not new adjustable Yukawa interactions. In reading this organization, one must not include the composite connection in and then count its separately displayed current terms a second time.
Finally the spin connection itself acquires gravitino-induced torsion and matter spin-current contributions. Eliminating this algebraic connection, or solving for auxiliary fields, can make further fermion contact terms implicit in the chosen covariant derivatives and component convention. The key mechanism is current coupling at first order, followed by the covariant and higher-order terms required by local supersymmetry, rather than merely changing ordinary derivatives in the original matter Lagrangian.
A symmetry of a classical field theory maps solutions to solutions; for the Noether theorem we require a continuous variational symmetry of the action, allowing its density to change by a total divergence. This is stronger than simply observing an accidental symmetry of one solution. Consider first-derivative fields and define
The Euler-Lagrange field equations are . For a fixed-coordinate variation , the product rule gives the off-shell identity
This identity is the proof's essential integration-by-parts step.
For a general spacetime symmetry write and . At a fixed point , while the volume-element variation contributes . Suppose action invariance takes the form
Combining with the preceding identity proves
This is the Noether current for a spacetime symmetry. It also covers internal symmetries, for which . A constant parameter corresponds to one Noether current; several independent parameters give several currents. Integrating the continuity equation gives
Thus the Noether charge is conserved when the fields have suitable falloff or no flux through the spatial boundary. These are classical identities; quantum symmetries may additionally require absence of an quantum anomaly.
Translations conserve energy and momentum. If the density has no explicit coordinate dependence, take the active fixed-coordinate variation for translation in direction . Then , and the internal-form proof with gives the canonical energy-momentum tensor
Its four spatial integrals are the conserved energy and momentum. For a real scalar field with density this becomes . Direct differentiation gives , which vanishes by the field equation.
Lorentz symmetry conserves angular momentum and boost charges. For that scalar example, is symmetric, so the Lorentz transformation currents can be written
Their divergence is . Spatial pairs give angular momentum, and time-space pairs give the conserved boost charges. For a spinor field or a vector field, the intrinsic field variation supplies an additional spin current; equivalently the Belinfante-Rosenfeld stress-energy tensor combines spin and orbital pieces into a symmetric stress tensor. The nonunitarity of the finite component Spinor representation of the Lorentz group does not obstruct conservation of these physical spacetime charges.
Global phase symmetry conserves particle charge. For a complex scalar field with density , the constant transformation leaves the density invariant. Using and gives the Noether current
For a Dirac field, the corresponding variations , yield instead , the Dirac current. Its divergence vanishes by the Dirac equation and adjoint Dirac equation. The Yukawa interaction of part 2 also preserves this phase symmetry, because each bilinear has one and one . Thus it preserves fermion number and forbids annihilation of two fermions into a single scalar. These currents express charge or particle-minus-antiparticle-number conservation, rather than conservation of total particle count in arbitrary interacting processes.
A global symmetry in field theory uses a spacetime-independent parameter and ordinarily relates physically distinct configurations. A gauge symmetry instead has arbitrary local parameters and represents redundancy in the description. For example, the Maxwell field is unchanged physically by : its electromagnetic field tensor is unchanged. For charged matter use together with . Differentiating shows , so the coupled Dirac action is locally gauge invariant. A local phase applied to free matter alone produces extra derivatives of and is not an invariance; the compensating gauge field is necessary.
Local arbitrariness gives identities among field equations, rather than an independent physical charge for every function . In the pure Maxwell field, action invariance under a compactly supported implies
Thus holds off shell, directly because is antisymmetric. This exemplifies the Noether second theorem. Gauge fixing and the Gupta-Bleuler null-state quotient remove redundant photon components; they do not remove a physical global charge. Gauge transformations that are nontrivial at a boundary can carry boundary charges, so the redundancy statement concerns transformations satisfying the chosen boundary conditions. Finally, discrete symmetries such as the sign reversal of a real scalar or parity symmetry in quantum field theory can be important without furnishing a continuous-parameter Noether current.
Take and the hypercharge generator on the scalar. The two commuting factors of the electroweak interaction have independent invariant gauge kinetic terms and therefore independent coupling constants. Non-Abelian gauge invariance requires the same for all three generators, while the factor has its own ; no symmetry of this product group requires .
A nonzero Higgs doublet can be rotated by to
The fundamental representation acts transitively on normalized complex doublets, so this fixes an internal direction without changing the vacuum norm. A general infinitesimal generator annihilates this vacuum only if
For real parameters this means and . Thus the connected stabilizer subgroup is one-dimensional:
This proves the claimed electroweak symmetry breaking and identifies the unbroken electric charge generator.
The gauge covariant derivative is
Writing the connection as , its local transformation is . Direct substitution gives . Unitarity then proves
so the scalar kinetic term is gauge-invariant.
At the constant vacuum the gauge covariant derivative becomes
Consequently
where and
The factor is the canonical real-vector mass-term normalization; the displayed electroweak doublet gauge-boson mass matrix contains squared masses when the gauge kinetic terms are canonical.
The electric charge generator acts on gauge fields through the Adjoint representation, not through the scalar's two-by-two matrix. With , the brackets and give , , and neutral . Hence the electromagnetic charge matrix of electroweak gauge fields in the requested basis is
Choose positive gauge couplings by the gauge-field sign convention. Set and . The Weinberg angle rotation diagonalizes the neutral block, while obey . The physical electroweak gauge bosons are
The charges are in units of . Thus the tree-level electroweak gauge-boson masses satisfy , and the unbroken photon is massless.
The electron and neutrino form the left-chiral lepton doublet, while the right-chiral electron is a weak singlet. In four-component notation use chiral projectors and package
Here each entry can be obtained by projecting a Dirac field; only the indicated chirality propagates. The hypercharges follow from : gives , and gives . The minimal theory has no right-handed neutrino.
The gauge-invariant lepton kinetic Lagrangian is
If unprojected Dirac spinors are used as notation instead, insert in the first kinetic term and in the second. The inactive components are not additional physical degrees of freedom. Each term is invariant because the gauge covariant derivative transforms in the same gauge group representation as its field.
No bare Dirac mass term is possible: and vanish by opposite adjoint projectors, while a cross term has an uncontracted weak-doublet index and hypercharge . A neutrino Dirac mass would additionally require the absent right-handed field. A Majorana mass term pairs a chiral field with itself; has hypercharge and has , so neither is invariant. These statements concern quadratic masses before electroweak symmetry breaking, not masses involving scalar insertions.
For the Higgs conjugate doublet, put . The given identity exponentiates to for . Therefore
In particular its weak isospin remains while its hypercharge reverses. Since , both and transform in the trivial representation of the full gauge group. They remain a Lorentz spinor and its adjoint; gauge singlet does not mean Lorentz scalar.
Finally the Yukawa interaction
is gauge invariant: the first term has total hypercharge , and its doublet indices are contracted. At the Higgs field vacuum it becomes . Rephase to make the coefficient real and positive and assemble . Then
This explicitly generates the gauge-invariant electron Yukawa mass, without a bare mass in the unbroken theory.
The remaining non-derivative component term in the Lagrangian is the Yukawa interaction
Equivalently the interaction Hamiltonian has the opposite displayed sign. The first term is the two-component fermion mass, and the second its scalar-fermion interaction. A phase redefinition of makes the mass coefficient nonnegative, so the physical Weyl spinor mass is
It is again independent of , the choice of root and any sign of a real . This distinguishes the complex bilinear coefficient from the nonnegative physical mass. In the pure-linear supersymmetry-breaking branch , the fermion is the massless Goldstino.
Variation with respect to the Dirac adjoint, the Dirac field, and the real scalar field respectively gives
The derivative in the adjoint equation acts to the left; its sign follows by integrating by parts. The Yukawa interaction supplies a spacetime-dependent effective fermion mass and a scalar source.
Use and the convention . The momentum-space Feynman rules are: a scalar internal line contributes ; an oriented fermion line contributes ; and each scalar-fermion vertex contributes times the identity in spinor space. Impose four-momentum conservation at each vertex. Incoming and outgoing fermions supply and , while incoming and outgoing antifermions supply and ; scalar external legs supply one. Loop momenta are integrated with , a closed fermion loop contributes a minus sign, and graph symmetry factors are included. Relative signs between distinct contractions of identical external fermions follow from their anticommutation relations. These specify the Feynman rules also beyond the tree approximation.
Label incoming momenta and outgoing momenta , with all external particles on shell. Write the Mandelstam variables as , , , and abbreviate . Spin indices on are implicit. The six required tree-level Feynman diagrams are:
Figure 1.
The six Yukawa tree diagrams for fermion, antifermion and scalar scattering, with momentum labels and fermion-number arrows
. Details.
For two incoming fermions, the two diagrams exchange a scalar in the and channels. With external state ordering and , the result is
Each scalar-exchange contraction has two factors and one scalar Feynman propagator. Exchanging the final fermions reverses the sign, as required by their identical-particle statistics.
For a fermion and antifermion, there is -channel scalar exchange and -channel annihilation. Take both initial and final states ordered as fermion creator followed by antifermion creator. Then
The relative minus is not optional. One way to track it is the antifermion sign of a normal-ordered bilinear: the antifermion scattering part of is , whereas its annihilation part is . Thus the exchange contraction has the opposite fermionic sign to the annihilation contraction before multiplying by . A different overall phase convention for external states changes the common sign of this amplitude, but cannot change the relative sign.
For fermion-scalar scattering, the fermion can absorb the incoming scalar before emitting the outgoing one, or emit first and absorb afterwards. The internal momenta are and respectively, giving
Both orderings have the same sign: there is only one open fermion line and no exchange of identical external fermions. There is no scalar-exchange diagram because this Yukawa interaction has no three-scalar vertex. These amplitudes describe tree scattering in Yukawa theory.