Contents

# Contents

## Idea

The standard model of particle physics is a Yang-Mills gauge theory with gauge group (a discrete quotient of) $SU(3) \times SU(2) \times U(1)$. Here the first factor is the gauge group of QCD while the $(SU(2) \times U(1))$-gauge field is that transmitting what is called the electroweak force.

The name is due to the fact that this gauge field unifies the electromagnetic field and that transmitting the weak nuclear force: the Higgs mechanism induces a spontaneous symmetry breaking of the electroweak field to these two fields. See at electroweak symmetry breaking.

## References

The electroweak interaction was introduced in

• Sheldon Glashow, The renormalizability of vector meson interactions, Nucl. Phys. 10, 107. (1959)

• Abdus Salam, John Clive Ward, Weak and electromagnetic interactions, Nuovo Cimento. 11 (4): 568–577. (1959)

The electroweak symmetry breaking via the Higgs mechanism is due to

The history of Weinberg 67 is recounted in

Discussion in causal perturbation theory is in