Gauge invariant accounts of the Higgs mechanism

Understand

The Higgs mechanism gives mass to Yang-Mills gauge bosons.

• According to the conventional wisdom, this happens through the spontaneous breaking of gauge symmetry.
• Yet, gauge symmetries merely reflect a redundancy in the state description and therefore the spontaneous breaking can not be an essential ingredient.
• Indeed, as already shown by Higgs and Kibble, the mechanism can be explained in terms of gauge invariant variables, without invoking spontaneous symmetry breaking.