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Concept
Mathematical formulation of the Standard Model
Summary
This article describes the mathematics of the Standard Model of particle physics, a gauge quantum field theory containing the internal symmetries of the unitary product group SU(3) × SU(2) × U(1). The theory is commonly viewed as describing the fundamental set of particles – the leptons, quarks, gauge bosons and the Higgs boson.
The Standard Model is renormalizable and mathematically self-consistent, however despite having huge and continued successes in providing experimental predictions it does leave some unexplained phenomena. In particular, although the physics of special relativity is incorporated, general relativity is not, and the Standard Model will fail at energies or distances where the graviton is expected to emerge. Therefore, in a modern field theory context, it is seen as an effective field theory.
Quantum Field Theory
The standard model is a quantum field theory, meaning its fundamental objects are quantum fields which are defined at all points in spacetime. QFT treats particles as excited states (also called quanta) of their underlying quantum fields, which are more fundamental than the particles. These fields are
the fermion fields, ψ, which account for "matter particles";
the electroweak boson fields , and B;
the gluon field, Ga; and
the Higgs field, φ.
That these are quantum rather than classical fields has the mathematical consequence that they are operator-valued. In particular, values of the fields generally do not commute. As operators, they act upon a quantum state (ket vector).
As is common in quantum theory, there is more than one way to look at things. At first the basic fields given above may not seem to correspond well with the "fundamental particles" in the chart above, but there are several alternative presentations which, in particular contexts, may be more appropriate than those that are given above.
Rather than having one fermion field ψ, it can be split up into separate components for each type of particle.
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