Application of the Background-Field Method to the electroweak Standard Model

Abstract

Application of the background-field method yields a gauge-invariant effective action for the electroweak Standard Model, from which simple QED-like Ward identities are derived. As a consequence of these Ward identities, the background-field Green functions are shown to possess very desirable theoretical properties. The renormalization of the Standard Model in the background-field formalism is studied. A consistent on-shell renormalization procedure retaining the full gauge symmetry is presented. The structure of the counterterms is shown to greatly simplify compared to the conventional formalism. A complete list of Feynman rules for the Standard Model in the background-field method is given for arbitrary values of a quantum gauge parameter including all counterterms necessary for one-loop calculations.