Abstract
Several recent reports1–3 have suggested that recent neutrino and polarised electron scattering experiments are not particular tests of the ‘standard theory’ of weak interactions, but only establish the strength and form of the weak neutral current appearing in the effective weak lagrangian along with the classical charged-current (J±) interactions. Whether or not weak vector mesons exist, the current experiments confirm the existence of an effective lagrangian (2) containing a weak neutral current (1) with the one parameter sin2θw. This letter shows that this already establishes some unification of electron and weak interactions, so that the question is no longer “Is unification really true?”3, but rather “Is the theory SU2 × U1 symmetric and renormalisable?” It also shows that, although weak charged currents must show structure1 below 160 GeV, the weak neutral currents can be structureless, that is mz = ∞ is compatible with the observed current (1).
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Bludman, S. Unified yes, renormalised maybe. Nature 282, 280–281 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1038/282280a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/282280a0
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