Weinberg-Salam model at finite temperature and density

Abstract

We present a new gauge fixing condition for the Weinberg-Salam electro-weak theory at finite temperature and density. After spontaneous symmetry breaking occurs, every unphysical term in the Lagrangian is eliminated with our gauge fixing condition. A new and simple Lagrangian can be obtained where we can identify the propagators and vertices. Some consequences are discussed, as the new gauge-dependent masses of the gauge fields and the new Faddeev-Popov Lagrangian. After obtaining the quadratic terms, we calculate exactly the 1-loop effective potential identifying the contribution of every particular field. © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.