Frozen symmetries and the effective dynamics of elementary particles

In contrast to the conventional approach to unified theories of elementary particles based on the notion of a basic dynamics involving many fields, invariant under a huge symmetry group and an appropriate sequence of spontaneous symmetry breakdowns, a radical approach to unification, historically related to Heisenberg's attempts three decades ago, is advocated in which the fundamental dynamics is formulated in terms of a single self-interacting constituent Heisenberg field. The great diversity and complexity of the phenomenological dynamics with their particular symmetry properties is suggested to arise effectively from the formation of local field compounds, and various Goldstone shieldings of the fields - nonlinear representations of the basic symmetry group or freezing of symmetries as described by H. Umezawa - because of a rather complex structure of the ground state. (orig.)