SPONTANEOUS SYMMETRY BREAKING AND PSEUDO-GOLDSTONE BOSONS IN CURVED SPACE-TIME (QUANTUM FIELD THEORY, ELEMENTARY PARTICLES)

In this thesis some aspects of spontaneous breaking of gauge symmetries are studied in curved space-time, with emphasis on properties of Pseudo-Goldstone bosons (PGB's). To this end we make use of the method of effective potential V(,eff).; The model considered is a SU(3) gauge theory of adjoint scalars with sponaneous breaking. We first review the PGB phenomenon in flat Minkowksi space. Our model curved space-time is the Einstein static universe R('1) x S('3) with constant scalar curvature R.; A method that both respects the symmetry of the curved manifold and the transformation properties of the fields is established for determining Laplacians in the evaluation of V(,eff).; It is found that quadratic, curvature dependent terms are generated in the effective potential for PGB's to one-loop order. These terms contribute non-trivially to the PGB masses in both the strong and weak gravitational limits.; We also draw attention to, and illustrate, a subtlety involved in establishing the coupling of Nambu-Goldstone bosons to the scalar curvature in theories with spontaneous symmetry breaking in the background of curve space-time with a constant curvature R.