About electrodynamics, standard model and the quantization of the electrical charge

Abstract

The quantization of the electrical charge in the electrodynamics and of the hypercharge in the standard model are imposed in the theory based not on theoretical arguments but on the experimental observations. In this paper we propose a quantum consistency condition in a theory where Ward identities are respected that requires the quantization of the charge within the framework of the theory without external impositions. This refers to the renormalization conditions in the background gauge field method such that to ensure a correct mathematical correspondence between the bare partition function and the renormalized one. Applied to the standard model of elementary particles our criterion together with the anomaly cancellation condition leads to the correct hypercharge assignment of all standard model fermions.