Massive Degeneracy and Goldstone Bosons: A Challenge for the Light Cone

Wherein it is argued that the light front formalism has problems dealing with Goldstone symmetries. It is further argued that the notion that in hadron condensates can explain Goldstone phenomena is false. This talk can be summarized as follows: (1) Exact symmetries can be realized in Wigner or Goldstone mode. (2) When a symmetry is realized in Wigner mode the states of the theory form degenerate irreducible representations of the symmetry group and the lowest energy state is unique. (3) When a symmetry is realized in Goldstone mode the lowest energy state of the theory is infinitely degenerate, the states of the theory do not form irreducible representations of the symmetry group and there are massless particles coupled by the conserved currents to any one of the possible ground states. (4) In finite volume the signal of a Goldstone realization of a symmetry is that the number of nearly degenerate states grows rapidly with increasing volume and the gap between these states shrinks exponentially with the volume. (5) The existence of a condensate such as the magnetization, for a ferromagnet, or the staggered magnetization for an anti-ferromagnet, signals a Goldstone symmetry. This is because this condensate transforms non-trivially under the symmetry transformations and so its existence implies the ground state isn't unique. (6) PCAC means that the pion, kaon and eta are would be Goldstone bosons of the theory where the quark masses are set to zero. This interpretation is overwhelmingly supported by experimental data. This means that these particles are really the wiggling of the order parameter or condensate. (7) Finally, in order for the Goldstone particle to exist there has to be something to wiggle every place where the particle can exist. This means that the condensate that is the order parameter for this Goldstone symmetry cannot be confined to the interior of hadrons. Thus, to reiterate, the challenge for the Light Front is to show how the formalism gives rise to this sort of pattern of degeneracy when the physical volume of space becomes large.