Spontaneous symmetry breaking in a coupled map lattice simulation of quantized Higgs fields

We study a class of coupled map lattices with a Z(2), U(1), and SU(2) symmetry, respectively. We point out that these types of coupled maps have applications in particle physics, since they arise from the field equations of stochastically quantized Higgs fields in the anti-integrable limit. For d-dimensional lattices we investigate the dependence of the vacuum expectation of the field on the coupling constant. Spontaneous symmetry breaking is observed at various critical coupling strengths. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.