Abstract
In gauge theories like the standard model, the electric charges of the fermions can be heavily constrained from the classical structure of the theory and from the cancellation of anomalies. We argue that the anomaly conditions are not quite as well motivated as the classical constraints, since it is possible that new fermions could exist which cancel potential anomalies. For this reason we examine the classically allowed electric charges of the known fermions and we point out that the electric charge of the tau neutrino is classically allowed to be non-zero. The experimental bound on the electric charge of the tau neutrino is many orders of magnitude weaker than for any other known neutrino. We discuss possible modifications of the minimal standard model such that electric charge is quantized classically.
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