Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: We study the high-temperature vacua of the Standard Model from the perspective of generalized symmetries and the global structure of the gauge group. We analyze the one-loop effective potential for Polyakov loop holonomies, incorporating the gauge identifications induced by gauging discrete subgroups of the electric one-form symmetry. This provides a classification of physically inequivalent vacua for each gauge-group quotient. We further comment on the effects of additional center-charged matter on the residual one-form symmetry and the vacuum structure.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Author: Xu, Ling-Xiao
Language: English
Subfield: Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7214145635