We discuss the effective field theory for spacetime symmetry breaking from the local symmetry point of view. By gauging spacetime symmetries, the identification of Nambu–Goldstone (NG) fields and the construction of the effective action are performed based on the breaking pattern of diffeomorphism, local Lorentz, and (an)isotropic Weyl symmetries as well as the internal symmetries including possible central extensions in nonrelativistic systems. Such a local picture distinguishes, e.g., whether the symmetry breaking condensations have spins and provides a correct identification of the physical NG fields, while the standard coset construction based on global symmetry breaking does not. We illustrate that the local picture becomes important in particular when we take into account massive modes associated with symmetry breaking, the masses of which are not necessarily high. We also revisit the coset construction for spacetime symmetry breaking. Based on the relation between the Maurer–Cartan one form and connections for spacetime symmetries, we classify the physical meanings of the inverse-Higgs constraints by the coordinate dimension of broken symmetries. Inverse Higgs constraints for spacetime symmetries with a higher dimension remove the redundant NG fields, whereas those for dimensionless symmetries can be further classified by the local symmetry breaking pattern.

• Received 28 February 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.92.045020