"We investigate the possibility that radiative corrections may produce spontaneous symmetry breakdown in theories for which the semiclassical (tree) approximation does not indicate such breakdown. The simplest model in which this phenomenon occurs is the electrodynamics of massless s. We find (for small coupling constants) that this theory more closely resembles the theory with an imaginary mass (the Abelian Higgs model) than one with a positive mass; spontaneous symmetry breaking occurs, and the theory becomes a theory of a massive vector meson and a massive scalar meson."

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Added on April 10, 2026
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Original Language: English

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Sidney Coleman and Erick Weinberg:

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Spontaneous_symmetry_breaking