On the equivalence theorem in the χPT description of the symmetry breaking sector of the standard model

We develop an alternative formulation of the symmetry breaking sector of the Standard Model as a gauged non-linear sigma model (NLSM) following the philosophy of the Chiral lagrangian approach, which is the only compatible with all the experimental and theoretical constraints. We derive the BRS symmetry of the model and the corresponding quantum lagrangian, which is a generalization of the standard Faddeev-Popov method, in a way which is covariant with respect to the reparametrizations of the coset space of the NLSM. Then we use the BRS invariance of the quantum lagrangian to state the Equivalence Theorem for the renormalized S-matrix elements calculated as a chiral expansion. ((orig.))