Classical Aspects of the Abelian Higgs Model on the Light Front

Abstract

We investigate canonical structure of the Abelian Higgs model within the framework of DLCQ. Careful boundary analysis of differential equations, such as the Euler-Lagrange equations, leads us to a novel situation where the canonical structure changes in a drastic manner depending on whether the (light-front) spatial Wilson line is periodic or not. In the former case, the gauge-field ZM takes discrete values and we obtain the so-called ``Zero-Mode Constraints'' (ZMCs), whose semiclassical solutions give a nonzero vev to the scalar fields. Contrary, in the latter case, we have no ZMC and the scalar ZMs remain dynamical as well as the gauge-field ZM. In order to give classically nonzero vev to the scalar field, we work in a background field which minimizes the light-front energy.