Equation 3 · Part 1 · The Vacuum Has a History: Symmetry Breaking as Speciation
Symbol phi
What this part means
phi is a part of this expression. Its role is fixed by the surrounding article and by the operations shown in the formula.
Its job in the formula
phi is a part of this expression. Its role is fixed by the surrounding article and by the operations shown in the formula.
Full expression→Symbol phi→Article meaning
The passage around this formula
Plotted against the two real components of , this is the shape popularly called the Mexican hat: a local maximum at = 0 , surrounded by a circular trough of degenerate minima at || = / . The sign of the mass term is the entire mechanism. With < 0 the origin would be the unique minimum and there would be…
Learn the underlying idea
A variable is a named place for a value. Its letter is a local label: x can mean position in one formula and a data point in another.
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Sources cited in the article section
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