THE HIGGS SECTOR ON A TWO-SHEETED SPACE–TIME

Abstract

We present a general formalism based on the framework of noncommutative geometry, suitable to the study of the standard model of electroweak interactions, as well as that of more general gauge theories. Left- and right-handed chiral fields are assigned to two different sheets of space–time (a discretized version of Kaluza–Klein theory). Scalar Higgs fields find themselves treated on the same footing as the gauge fields, resulting in spontaneous symmetry breaking in a natural and predictable way. As a first test, we apply the formalism to the Standard Model, where one can predict the Higgs mass and the top Yukawa coupling. The results obtained for this case are similar with results obtained in alternate formulations. We then study the left–right symmetric model, where we show that this framework imposes interesting constraints on the type and coefficients of terms appearing in the Higgs potential.