Structure of Phenomenological Lagrangians. I

TLDR

The manifold of phenomenological fields contains a distinguished point called the origin, and the problem reduces to finding all nonlinear realizations of a compact, connected, semisimple Lie group that become linear when restricted to a given subgroup. The authors investigate the general structure of phenomenological Lagrangian theories and discuss the possible transformation laws of the fields under a group, including the relation between linear representations and nonlinear realizations. Field redefinitions that leave the on‑shell S‑matrix invariant must keep the origin fixed, and by choosing suitable fields the group actions on the field manifold can be cast into standard forms, while the link between linear representations and nonlinear realizations is examined. The special cases of the chiral groups SU(2)×SU(2) and SU(3)×SU(3) are studied in detail.

Abstract

The general structure of phenomenological Lagrangian theories is investigated, and the possible transformation laws of the phenomenological fields under a group are discussed. The manifold spanned by the phenomenological fields has a special point, called the origin. Allowed changes in the field variables, which do not change the on-shell $S$ matrix, must leave the origin fixed. By a suitable choice of fields, the transformations induced by the group on the manifold of the phenomenological fields can be made to have standard forms, which are described in detail. The mathematical problem is equivalent to that of finding all (nonlinear) realizations of a (compact, connected, semisimple) Lie group which become linear when restricted to a given subgroup. The relation between linear representations and nonlinear realization is discussed. The important special case of the chiral groups $\mathrm{SU}(2)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}\mathrm{SU}(2)$ and $\mathrm{SU}(3)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}\mathrm{SU}(3)$ is considered in detail.