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Constraints And Degrees Of Freedom In Lorentz-Violating Field Theories, Michael D. Seifert

Physics, Astronomy and Geophysics Faculty Publications

Many current models which “violate Lorentz symmetry” do so via a vector or tensor field which takes on a vacuum expectation value, thereby spontaneously breaking the underlying Lorentz symmetry of the Lagrangian. To obtain a tensor field with this behavior, one can posit a smooth potential for this field, in which case it would be expected to lie near the minimum of its potential. Alternately, one can enforce a nonzero tensor value via a Lagrange multiplier. The present work explores the relationship between these two types of theories in the case of vector models. In particular, the naïve expectation that …