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Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking: Quantum Statistical Mechanics versus Quantum Field Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Doreen Fraser
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Abstract

Philosophical analysis of spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) in particle physics has been hindered by the unavailability of rigorous formulations of models in quantum field theory (QFT). A strategy for addressing this problem is to use the rigorous models that have been constructed for SSB in quantum statistical mechanics (QSM) systems as a basis for drawing analogous conclusions about SSB in QFT. On the basis of an analysis of this strategy as an instance of the application of the same mathematical formalism to different domains and as an instance of drawing analogies between domains, I conclude that certain structural explanations can be exported from QSM to QFT but that causal explanations cannot.

Type
Physics
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 79 , Issue 5 , December 2012 , pp. 905 - 916
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

Thank you to the members of the audience at PSA 2010 and my fellow symposiasts (Chris Smeenk, Ward Struyve, and Michael Stöltzner) for helpful feedback. This work was supported by a standard research grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

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